


A Curse of Smoke and Fire

by SanSanFanFan



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Canon Divergence - The Battle of the Blackwater, Curses, Eventual Fluff, Eventual Smut, F/M, Magic, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-02
Updated: 2015-04-13
Packaged: 2018-02-15 21:23:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 21
Words: 153,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2243958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SanSanFanFan/pseuds/SanSanFanFan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sansa Stark said yes... and now they race through the woods on Stranger's back. Her and the Hound... But dark words bring a dark curse. A bird by day, a dog by night... endless days and endless nights, together but apart. Inspired by the film Ladyhawke (1985)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

SANSA

It was all her fault. All of it.

They'd been barely two days hard riding away from Kings Landing when she'd fallen from Stranger. Two days and even then the distance they had put between them and the capital was not nearly enough. There had been brief moments when she could peer around his mail covered arms. She would look back along the forest path chewed up by Stranger's hooves and on and up to the horizon framed by dark twisted trees. The sky behind them was an eerie eldritch green from the Wildfire: the world was still ablaze.

Only two days out, but already miles and miles of wooded land had been eaten up by Stranger's sharpened hooves. They'd ridden hard, both by day and by night. She was hungry, she was tired, and most of all she was sore. There were the usual riding pains of course, but resting in his arms she was also surrounded by hard iron. Her cloak and dress were torn in many small ways, her hair was undone… small cuts and bruises bothered her.

But she had not complained. Not once.

She hadn't even spoken since she'd found him in her chambers, drunk and smelling of fire and blood. Not a word even when she'd silently nodded her consent to go with him. She silently took the pain and tiredness as the price she had to pay to escape her gilded cage.

Finally… finally she knew that it had truly been a cage. Her time in the Red Keep with Queen Cersei during the battle had made it abundantly clear that Kings Landing was no longer a place of fairy tales and gallant knights. It was no longer the sun drenched vision that had put her Winterfell into cold, dark shade. The sounds of the battle out there in the night had finally ripped away her last daydreams of courtly love and brave champions in a way that even the beatings had not. And after, when all that dream-stuff was finally stripped away, it had not been so difficult to agree to go with him… the Hound.

And now… she was not the only tired one. His arms had no longer held her tightly. They had been as hard and unmovable as a wall around her when they had first charged from the stables. But she dare nt suggest they stop now, even for his sake. He would think she was just some whining child and regret his decision to take her home. Maybe he would leave her alone in these woods. Maybe someone else would find her… someone who would hurt her.

So she kept her weakness to herself. Even when she started to feel sick to her stomach. Even when sweat poured into her eyes and plastered her hair to her head. Even when her limbs started shivering by their own volition.

And when she finally fainted fully against his tired arms they were not ready. And she fell.

***

His face was above her when she opened her eyes again. Unbidden, her eyes drifted to his scars, noting once more how they pulled his eyebrow down on that one side, giving a sad slant to his face there. Of course, he saw her looking. He turned away and spat.

"Seven fucking hells!"

Sansa watched him wearily from the ground as he stood up abruptly and marched over to where Stranger was standing. The horse's heaving sides were flecked with spittle and his eyes were still wild from the frantic pace the Hound had set. Sansa watched him grab a waterskin from his saddle and quickly return with it.

"Drink."

This was not an order to be questioned or disobeyed, but as she tried to reach for the waterskin her arms trembled and failed her.

Grunting, a frown forming quickly on his brow, he knelt down next to her and forced a hand under her head, bringing the waterskin to her lips. As she drank she realised how thirsty she had been and she tried to drain the skin.

"Steady now, not so fast or you'll retch it up again." He studied her intently, his eyes searching over her. "Are you hurt? You fell…"

She stopped drinking and shook her head. In truth her hip hurt, and her forearm, but she couldn't admit that. Nor that she was feverish, and that her limbs felt weaker than a new born babe's. She couldn't be a burden to him. She had to get home. He had to get her home.

"The whole of Kings Landing will be looking for us by now. We have to ride. No choice in it. Come on, up you get."

He took the waterskin from her lips and put it aside before grasping her by her upper arms and forcing her up. Not roughly, but firmly. Again, there could be no question of disobeying.

But suddenly the sky spun and the sun shifted its position high above her. The arms of trees sought to catch it and return its rightful place but round and round the chase went.

She fell hard against him, and remembered nothing else for a long while.

***

She awoke in a bed and for a sweet moment she was back in Winterfell…

But her room in Winterfell was bigger by far than this one. She lay on a small simple cot, and the mattress was stuffed with straw not the soft down she was used to. Opposite there was a roughhewn wooden table covered in jars and bottles. But apart from the bed and the table the room was completely bare.

She propped herself up to look around, glad that this time her head didn't spin off into the sky again. In fact, her head felt strangely heavy. She reached up and felt a large wad of rough material folded over on her forehead. She took it off and smelt the pungent mix of herb waters on it: lavender, mint, feverfew, and some other strange spices she didn't recognise.

Swinging her legs around cautiously she moved to the edge of the bed, frowning as she tried to find her place and time. Was she back in Kings Landing? Had their pursuers found them? This could be a cell in the bowels of the castle. But why would they bother to send a Maester to heal her fever? Perhaps they wanted her standing strong in front of the jeering crowd before they lopped off her head… as they had done with her father.

And how long had she been unconscious? Her last memory was of falling, falling from the sky itself it had seemed, but she must have fallen into the Hound's arms this time.

By the Seven! If he had not before, he must think so little of her now. The silly noble lady, fainting at the slightest thing.

Suddenly she had to force the tears back. This was not Kings Landing; he'd just left her at the first village he could find. He'd thrown some coins at an innkeep and his wife and left them to deal with her fever!

Just as she was blinking the sharpness out of her eyes the wooden door to the room opened slowly. A short muddy haired man peered around the door at her. A wide smile swept across his face as he saw she was sitting up, and he came fully into the room.

"Ah, my lady patient is awake!"

He wore a simple, patched, robe. Around his neck on a leather thong he wore a seven pointed star made from twigs and bound with what looked like cat's gut. Sansa relaxed, suddenly realising that since the door had opened she had been holding her hands in fists, her nails digging into the skin. Not a jailor then, but a Septon.

And a young one at that! Older than her but not beyond his twentieth year she thought. His face was round and smooth under that mop of muddy hair, unlined as yet. She suddenly became aware that she was only wearing her shift. Of course, if he had been the one to treat her, he would have had to remove her dress to check on her wellbeing. Sansa quickly looked down to her forearm. It still throbbed, a large welt running along ways it towards her littlest finger. But it was whole, no break under the skin.

"I had thought you might have broken it… but the bone is good." The Septon smiled his wide smile again, noticing her look. "Falling from a horse as tall as that one… well, you are very fortunate."

"Stranger…?" her mouth felt awkward as she made the words. How long had it been since she had spoken? How long since the Hound had rushed her through the quieter passages of the Keep? His mouth, so normally quick to snide comment, had been shut and silent then too…

"He grazes outside, watched by your… guardian" The Septon's hesitancy made her blush. She wondered how exactly the Hound had introduced them to this young man. The lie was obvious, whatever it had been.

He seemed to recognise her embarrassment and opened his hands wide, a gesture of acceptance.

"I am merely glad that the Mother guided you and your guardian here safely from wherever it was that you… left so quickly". He smiled again, "You'll soon see how far removed my little Sept is from the concerns of great lords and ladies. That is, if you feel up to walking?"

She nodded and took his offered hand to rise from the lowly bed.

"Good. I will help you dress. There are no maids here I'm afraid, but even I can tie a knot or two. And then let us see how Stranger is, shall we?"

But she knew that he did not mean Stranger at all.

***

The little room turned out to be set behind a small Sept nave, the rough wooden door leading out onto a cavernous space with a stone altar at the nearest end. A window was set above the altar, its glass was long gone but it's frame was still divided into seven parts. Wooden pews were arranged either side of the short distance to the main double doors. As they walked down that aisle together Sansa thought she heard the rustle of small birds in the shadowy eaves of the tiny sept. Probably swifts, but she could not be sure as apart from the light streaming in through the broken window, the space was as dark as any she had seen. But then they were at the large wooden doors and the Septon led her out into the bright day light.

They were still in the great forest it seemed. The sun was high in the sky and the shadows under the trees were as dark as the Sept inside. Sansa blinked in the light, her eyes adjusting after being closed for so long.

"How long was I asleep… father?"

The Septon was about to answer when a deep and growling voice interrupted him.

"Too bloody long, that's for damned sure."

He was under one of the largest trees with Stranger, tightening fastenings and checking saddle bags.

Compared to the small Septon he was immense, and the old fears surged back when she saw him standing there in his battle worn armour. But this was the Hound, however rough and horrible he could be… he had come back for her, to take her home. He didn't look happy about it though.

"We have to go." His mouth was set in a determined, hard line.

The Septon started towards him, his hands open in welcome.

"Ser…"

"I'm no bloody ser!"

"As you wish. Please, for the sake of your… lady. Please stay and at least sup with me. She's obviously not eaten for days."

Sansa had not thought on her hunger, but there it was suddenly like a starving wolf at the door. She started towards him as well but a wave of weakness hit her. I will not faint again! She thought angrily to herself and dug her nails deep into her hand again. The Septon quickly took her arm to steady her.

The Hound's face turned darker still. But then he looked off into the distance, thinking.

"We stay one more night." He turned back to Stranger and loosened the saddle, ready to take it off, not stopping to look at Sansa and the Septon as he snapped out the words.

"Excellent! Excellent" The Septon's wide smile beamed at her.

For the first time she was not reassured by it, and she was not entirely sure why.

***

The poor Septon fed them well as well as he could while explaining why the Sept was so isolated. There was little meat, but plenty of forest grown nuts, tubers and foliage turned into a thick stew. For a man like the Hound it wasn't nearly enough, but for Sansa it was restorative. Soon she was chatting lightly with the Septon, or Heyrick as he insisted, about the past of his small church.

"There was always a holy site here. Long, long ago, before there were even villages in these parts. The Seven marked this land and made it prosper-"

"The game left though." The Hound interrupted, looking up from his bowl, his face part in shadow, part in light from the campfire even though he sat further from it and them.

"Aye, that's certainly true. Used to be that the path you were on was well maintained. King Robert used to come this way and hunt with his men and hounds." He looked at the Hound then, but said nothing more on that.

"And the little Sept?" Asked Sansa, changing the subject as the Hound moved back further into the shadows. House Clegane had been founded by the Lannisters who had made their houndmaster a lord for his service. And the sons of the House, Sandor and Gregor, had served the family after as it sat on the Iron throne in the body of… Joffrey. Was the Septon hinting that he knew him? "Tell me more about your Sept please father?"

"It was always here, just off the main path, and of little interest to King Robert anyways. It was built on this holy place by my fore-brothers. I came here not that long ago to tend to this building and the people."

"But do the people often worship here?" She asked, genuinely interested, the Sept had seemed so derelict and unused. And it was refreshing to speak on things that had nothing to do with herself or the King's court.

"Not often, true. They are woodsmen and craftsmen mostly in these parts, more like to worship the Smith as they work then to make a trip to this building." Heyrick smiled again then, "But here I am if they need me."

Sansa smiled in return, but again, something left her uneasy.

The Hound looked at the Septon intently then, and grunted before saying, "Aye, here you are."

The Septon looked back across the campfire at the Hound. He paused and picked a tuber from his bowl, eating it with his hands, instead of the fork he had been using. "And here are you… ser."

The empty silence needed filling, but the Hound had not told her of what he had said to Heyrick about their journey. Finally the Hound looked the Septon in the eye and lied.

"I told you. We were on our way to her wedding day when the rest of her honour guard were killed…"

"And you escaped the ambush…?"

"Aye. We escaped." The Hound had idly, it seemed, rested his hand on the dagger at his waist. From where she sat Sansa wasn't sure if Heyrick could see that. What was he doing? The Septon had given them no reason to distrust him. Even if he did, what could this one small man do? Drag them back to Kings Landing himself?

Heyrick nodded silently and turned to her, "You must have been so scared my lady. I doubt in Kings Landing you came across such… violence"

She knew how to play this false part at least. "No dear father, in Kings Landing it was much more civilised indeed. I was very well treated by my host house". She smiled sweetly, but it was an act and one that came easily now. She could feel parts of herself screaming against that lie and let them drift away, unwanted, just as she had done at Kings Landing. Her courtesies were her armour. But what happened to the rest of her? What happened to the real Sansa? Maybe she was all armour now. None of these dark thoughts were allowed to show on her face.

"I am sure your house will be gratified that you have escaped harm and will still make it to your wedding day whole and hearty!" Heyrick beamed like a fool, but Sansa felt suddenly that he was anything but a fool. She wanted to go away quickly, but courtesy was not just her armour, it was her cage also.

"Please excuse me, I think it is time I retired for the night" As she stood up the Septon jumped up to show his good manners while the Hound stayed still. "Of course my lady. I do hope my small cell and bed is not too uncomfortable for you."

"Your charity honours me."

Before she could react he had taken her hand and was pressing his lips against her knuckles. When once the gesture might have pleased her for its courtliness, it turned her stomach as she walked back to the Sept. She thought at first it was because it was a reminder of her experiences in the 'gentle' court of Kings Landing… but later, when her mind turned again to that kiss, she realised it was the giver that had made her uneasy.

***

She woke suddenly, a heavy weight on top of her, a hand over her mouth stopping her scream. For a moment she thought it was the Hound, as it had been the night of the battle. But this was not the same weight, this was not the same man. It was Heyrick.

"Shhh my lady, shhh." He wasn't trying to comfort her. This was an order, sharply edged with threat. "Don't let them hear you yet, I don't want to ruin the surprise."

Her eyes grew wider as she struggled against his grip. He was smaller than Sandor, but oddly strong for his size and she couldn't get away.

He leant in, whispering in her ear.

"Oh what a treat you will be. So noble, so pretty. And a maiden at that." His smile widened across his face, and then she knew what had disturbed her before. All those smiles before… Not one had reached his eyes. But this one did. He was genuinely pleased for the first time.

"We are going to go down into the belly of this holy house and you are going to come face to face your true gods." That smile again. "And don't expect your wretched dog to save you this time Lady… I know many herbs and many poisons. Believe me when I say that he will never wake again."

She sobbed then, crying aloud against the foul taste of his hand, tears forming at her eyes.

He grabbed her roughly then and sat her up, knotting a rag around her mouth before she could get enough air in her lungs to yell out. But what was the point anyway if the Hound was dead? No one was out there to hear her anymore. No one could come save her this time.

As he tied her hands behind her back she realised that this time she would have to save herself, however hard that might be.

He pushed her roughly out of the little room and towards the altar stone. Putting his shoulder against the rough block he pushed it to one side. Sansa struggled with her bonds while he was occupied but to no avail, they were tight, cutting off the circulation to her hands.

Under the altar was a rectangular stone slab set into the floor, a metal ring on one side. Grabbing the ring the Septon yanked the slab up, revealing a set of stones steps going down into a deeper darkness. He grabbed her then and guided her down the steps to a sloping tunnel. It was damp and smelled of something vile that she couldn't immediately identify. There was a flaming torch set into a sconce on the wall that he grabbed and used to light their way as he pulled her along with his other hand.

Sansa thought quickly and swooned into a faint, letting her body go completely limp.

Heyrick cursed loudly as she fell. The landing was hard, though not as hard as falling from Stranger had been, but it awoke the pains in her hip and arm. He grabbed her roughly then and part lifted, part dragged, her further down the descending tunnel. She knew all she was doing was gaining a little more time before he did what he planned, and to what end if the Hound was dead?

As he dragged her she noticed the change in the walls of the tunnel. At first they had been plain stone, mortar filling the gaps. Then, as they got closer to where the false Septon was taking them they were smoothed over, making a blank canvas. Then, painted on that canvas were strange creatures that reminded her of the sigil of House Greyjoy: the Kraken. In the flickering light of his torch their tentacles almost looked like they were moving. And there were people in the pictures: people being torn apart, blood flowing across the pictures… just streaks of red paint, but it helped her recognise the vile smell in the tunnel. It was the smell of blood. She'd smelt it on the Hound when he'd come for her during the Battle of Blackwater. It felt like a century ago now, but the smell brought that night back immediately.

The Hound suddenly emerged from the dark behind them and threw the vile Septon against the tunnel wall. She thought for a moment that he was something out of her memories, or a ghost.

"No!" The Septon gibbered at the Hound, "No, they must have their sacrifice!"

The Hound stabbed him then, low in the stomach, growling with rage as he did it.

"No! You'll not stop me… NO!" The Septon's mouth bubbled with blood, which he spat at the Hound, splashing his face and matting his hair.

Then the Septon laughed, looking down for a moment and letting his shaggy mud coloured hair cover his face. When he looked up again a low sound started in his throat before booming out of him. It was a sound full of hard guttural screeches and clicks, some kind of strange language Sansa had never heard before. It made the hairs stand up on her arms. It made her teeth stand on edge.

The Hound stabbed him again then, but the Septon just laughed and pointed at them both, one finger on each hand jabbing at them: the maid kneeling on the floor, the immense Hound leaning over him with a bloody dagger in his hand.

"I curse you! I curse you to endless days and endless nights apart! I curse you!"

His laugh turned into a croaking noise and then a cough that took him away from the living lands into the darkness.

Sansa sobbed then, no longer able to hold in the fear and the pain. The Hound turned to her and swept her up off of the ground to stand against his side, his arm supporting her.

"He said…" She looked up warily into his eyes, those grey, furious eyes. "He said there was poison…"

"Wouldn't drink anything that rat priest gave me. He insisted too fucking much. Smiled too bloody much too. But I made him think I did-"

A roaring sound echoed down the tunnel then, interrupting him. It came from further down the tunnel where the darkness was absolute. It came again, louder. Closer maybe.

"Time to go, Little Bird". He swept her up onto his shoulder, as he had done during the riot, and charged back towards the steps. Looking behind them as he ran she saw what she thought was a shadow moving near the Septon's body. It was long and thin. The Septon's body started to jiggle and shiver, then it was sliding away from them, further down into the tunnel and the darkness.

They made it to the steps and the Hound bounded up them. He put her down quickly, but gently, before going back to the stone slab and heaving it over the steps again. Almost as soon as he had let it fall down into its niche it jumped up again, dust exploding from underneath it. The roaring was louder now, closer too.

"The altar!" She shouted at him, panic rising in her voice.

He put his shoulder against it and heaved it into place on top of the slab. The Septon had been much smaller than him but the Hound could barely move it and once it was settled he slid to the ground panting, exhausted. She prayed quickly that whatever was down there would stay down there now.

The two of them lay there for a moment, both too shocked by what had happened. Both still unsure what had happened.

"Thank you… you saved me again" She whispered, almost scared to look over at him, sure that he would be annoyed at the trouble she put him to.

But he just grunted and got up, offering her his hand to help her up. It was an unconscious gesture, but as she took his hand she thought of how little they had actually touched. His knife at her throat barely counted! She nearly giggled out loud at that thought, before wondering if the night's events had addled her mind and made her quite mad. But she didn't let go of his hand as they walked down the aisle together and out of the perverted Sept.

Moonlight shone down on the two of them as they walked through the double doors. It edged the trees and illuminated the shape of Stranger as he stood waiting to take her home.

She was so relieved to be outside, relieved that the Septon was dead, that she almost didn't notice that the Hound had stopped, his hand dropping from hers as she walked on. Then she heard him groan in pain.

Turning back and seeing his ashen face her first thought was of poison. Maybe he had not fooled the Septon at all! Maybe it was a slow working poison that was this moment burning through his veins and killing him!

She dashed to his side as he fell to his knees, agony clear on his face.

"Sandor!"

He looked up at her then, his eyes pleading with her. She'd never seen him so defenceless before. She took his head in her hands, uncaring that she touched his burns.

"What can I do?!"

But he just screamed and pushed away from her grasp, curling up on the floor before thrashing in pain. The ground was chewed up by his limbs and she could get no closer or risk being hit by flailing fists. He screamed, tearing at his skin. Then suddenly he was up, on his feet, and gone before she could try and stop him. He ran towards the darkness of the trees, tearing his shirt off and disappearing into the gloom.

Sansa stood there panting. It had all happened so fast it was as though nothing had happened at all. The moon still shone. Stranger still stood waiting. But she was alone.


	2. Chapter 2

SANDOR

It was all his fault. The whole fucking lot of it.

He hadn't even looked down at her as they raced through the woods, keeping to the old hunting trail he knew was long abandoned, keeping away from people and questions. But he had really been keeping away from his own questions. What the fuck had he just done?! Running and hiding in her rooms because the flames were coming for him?! Stealing the King's bride-to-be away in the night?!

Those flames were still coming for him. He could feel their heat on his back. So he pushed Stranger harder and faster than ever before, as though he could outrun the flames and his fears. And if he didn't look at her, didn't acknowledge what he had done, if he just kept going through the night and then on through the day… maybe he could outrun what he had done.

Then she fell so suddenly his arm was unprepared and she slipped from Stranger's back.

For a moment he was certain she was dead, that it had all been for nothing. But when he knelt next to her on the forest floor he had seen her struggling to breath. Touching her arm he'd recoiled from the fire burning in her. The flames had come for her instead.

When had he last even given her something to drink? Her eyes opened and searched his face, resting on his fucking burns. Was she really so scared of him that she had been afraid to ask even for a drop of water?! If she was scared it was his own fucking fault. He turned away and spat, sickened and furious with himself.

"Seven fucking hells!"

He fetched the waterskin and then tried to stop her from making herself sick on it as she drained it.

His dark eyes roamed over her body. Was this fever the sign of a pox? Were there any marks? Would he have to undress her to find out? Or had she hurt herself when she fell? She said not, but when he tried to get her to stand, to get back to Stranger, she had fainted against him again.

She barely weighed a thing as he lifted her. Those months of torture in Kings Landing had robbed her of her appetite that was clear. Damn and curse those fucking Lannisters! She'd barely been more than a slip of a girl when he'd first seen her, but now she was a ghost of herself. How much had she given up of herself just to survive their torments? Enough of that. He had gotten her away. Now he had to find somewhere she could rest in a real bed and be taken care of. The kind of care he knew he couldn't give her. Hadn't he already shown that by not even giving her water to drink?!

But he'd chosen this path because it avoided all the main roads out of Kings Landing, and because it was abandoned. Not only by the men and womenfolk who used to make coin out of Robert's extended hunting trips, but also by the animals themselves. It used to be one of the fat kings favourite paths – there'd also been a few local wenches along the way as well of course – but a few years back all the game had moved to other parts of the great forest.

Well, they couldn't go back. He'd have to get her back on to Stranger and hope that they would come across a woodsman with a capable wife eventually.

***

The sun was setting when he saw the figure further up the path. For a moment he thought it was a trick of the light, or a shadow cast by a tree that looked like a man. But no, he stayed there even when the exhausted Hound closed and reopened his eyes. A small man, robed and with scruffy hair bothering his eyes. The seven pointed star on his chest was a good sign at least, he thought grudgingly, a Gods' man might know something about poxes and medicines. At least more than he did.

He pulled Stranger to a halt by the man, who opened his hands wide to show that he wasn't armed. As if that would matter if the Hound cared to fight the little shit…

"She needs aid" the Hound barked down at him.

The Septon looked at the pale maid in his arms. Suddenly Sandor felt protective of his charge, not wanting this small man to even look at her. But he pushed that thought away. Let him look, let him help.

"I heard your horse coming my Lord… my Sept is just beyond those trees. I have a bed, medicines… I will do what I can for your lady."

He'd spun a lie in his head in case they'd run into help. When he told it though, it stank of untruth.

"We were ambushed. On the way to her wedding. Honor guard dead, apart from me."

The Septon just nodded and clasped his hands together. "Thank the Seven you were coming this way…" He gestured for the Hound to follow him off of the path. Stranger shied suddenly, but the Hound dug his heels in and made him follow.

The little man led them to what the Hound thought was a derelict building so ill-kept it was. Swinging himself down from Stranger's back he carried Sansa after the Septon as he led them into the stone Sept and towards a small Septon's cell in the back. The Sept was dark inside, and the Hound was sure the rafters were full of bats, but the room Heyrick took them to was clean and would do. He gently lay Sansa down on the rough cot as the Septon busied himself with jars on the nearby table.

"I'll need to undress her. If you would…?" He gestured to the door, prompting Sandor to leave.

"No fucking chance" he growled and rested his hand on the broad dagger at his waist.

"I assure you my vows…"

"I know all about men's vows. I'll stay."

The Septon nodded and turned to Sansa, starting to untie her stays.

The Hound shifted uncomfortably. He'd seen her beaten by Ser Meryn, he'd seen her stripped, but he couldn't look now. He rested his eyes somewhere above the bed, trying to keep the Septon in the corner of his eye. The man seemed to go about his work seriously and Sandor only looked again when Heyrick coughed slightly.

Sansa was just in her shift, her pale limbs on display, but the Septon covered them quickly with a rough spun blanket, watching the Hound's face all the while.

"She is whole. The fever could have been brought about by her… traumatic experience. For a high born lady such an ambush would have been terrifying. There are bruises from a fall, and older bruises that are still healing. But there is no sign of pox". He gestured towards the table. "I have herbs that will still the fever. With rest and food she will be well again."

Sandor nodded before taking the only chair in the room, and setting it outside the door.

"Do your work Septon. I'll be sitting right here."

***

Just before Heyrick brought Sansa out into the light from the darkness of the Sept, Sandor had moved quickly to Stranger's side, fussing with bags and straps that were already set and had been for a while. If he could just focus on the task at hand, as he had done during their race through the forest, he could forget for a moment the amount of shit they were in.

But when the thin pale girl had wobbled, faint from hunger, he knew he'd have start dealing with the bigger problems they faced. So he'd reluctantly agreed to stay another night, to let Sansa eat and rest further.

He'd hoped for some decent grub, but the bowl the Septon placed in front of him was just a watery, thin vegetable stew. He could barely eat it, wishing for a decent slab of meat he could tear into. The girl had eaten well at least, and she'd even managed to divert the little shit's attention from the glaring lies the Hound had told him. She'd learnt a lot from that wretched court in Kings Landing, she'd learnt about a lady's armour and weapons, he could see that now.

After she had gone a bed, Sandor was left with the little man. Heyrick gibbered and ran his mouth about this and that. Sandor grunted occasionally as though he was listening, but eventually he thought about slitting the chattering fool's throat to silence him.

"-And of course King Robert's hunting parties used to come through here-"

Now the Gods-botherer was repeating himself! Sandor reached for the wine skin he'd brought with him from the Keep. The one that he'd kept topping himself up with so he wouldn't lose his drunken courage he'd had when he'd stolen the Little Bird from the cunt King. The one he'd kept drinking from when all the while he gave the Little Bird no water at all… He tossed the skin to one side abruptly, furious with himself all over again.

The Septon misunderstood the action. "Here, ser, I have a fine wine brothers of mine make if yours is finished. I have a small supply for special guests." Heyrick held up a wineskin of his own, and smiled broadly. The man smiled too bloody much, what was he so fucking happy about anyway? Being the Septon of some no where, derelict Sept?

"No… I've had enough"

"You must try it, it's really very good. And that's not false boasting".

The silence was deafening as the Septon continued to hold his arm out, his smile still plastered on his face. Finally, the Hound took the wine skin.

"That's it. Drink deep. I have more inside."

Sandor held the wineskin to his lips, but didn't let it pass them. Something smelt wrong about the wine as soon as it came near his face. There was a coppery smell he didn't recognise.

Tonight he'd have to watch the tiny Septon.

***

Seven Gods curse him, he hated being in the right sometimes.

Charging back up the tunnel, with the girl over his shoulder, he heaved himself up the steps and back into the nave of the Sept. In a second he had put her down, grabbed the stone slab and shoved it back into place. Sansa gestured at the altar stone and he got that on top of it moments after something beat itself against the slab. Whatever had been down there was angry now. They had to leave. She was fretting… she knew about the Septon's poison. No time to have a long tongue wag about that now. Time to get out of this cursed place.

But as soon as they were back out in the moonlit clearing in front of the Sept he knew something was wrong. It started in his spine as a tickle. Then sparks ran up and down his back. Then the sparks caught… and fire raged across his body.

He knew he was scaring her, but he was back there again. Back in the small room, surrounded by Maesters forcing fluids into his mouth as his face carried on burning.

But now it was his entire body.

She tried to bring him back to here and now, but the urge to run from the pain was greater and he roared in frustration as his feet found themselves underneath him again and he crashed through the undergrowth and into the dark woods. He wasn't sure how long he ran for, leaving her pale face back there behind him as the flames stayed with him. Fire in his blood, his bones, covering his skin.

His bare skin, clothes ripped off and left behind.

And then all he could do was stand and open his arms wide as the change came.

Afterwards he would be able to put into some rough words what the change was like. But not now, not while it was happening to him.

Once it was done, the forest returned to silence.

He panted, his tongue lolling out of his mouth. That was what brought him back to his mind, or what remained of it. The strangeness of a tongue that lolled out of his mouth. The oddness of soil between claws. The sharpness of his teeth. The sharpness of his hunger.

The Septon. That evil language he'd spewed at them before he'd died. What had he done to him?

He stood now on four legs, his sides still heaving from the run and the change. Sandor had grown up around dogs, and not just the ones on his sigil. He knew what he was now, a hunting dog. A mastiff probably given how large he was. His muscles rippled under his short tan coloured hair. His pads were large and ended in sharp claws. His muzzle… some of it was dark, but the other side-

The fucking Gods take him! The other side was as scarred and burnt as his face, he could feel how the skin was tight and pulled there. That Septon had a sense of humour at least. Even as a dog, he was still the Hound.

What could he do now? Return to Sansa? Like this?!

At the thought of the girl he knew where she was. In this form he could smell… everything. The breeze brought him scents from all around, as well as the trail he had left behind him when he'd crashed through the woods, his skin touching branches and leaves and marking them. It brought her scent to him too: the soap that still clung to her skin even when she was days away from the perfumes of court.

And that smell was getting stronger. Closer. The stupid bloody girl was looking for him!


	3. Chapter 3

Sansa

She was alone. Alone in a clearing in front of an evil Sept where something had pulled the little Septon's body down the dark tunnel. Where something was still waiting for her underground.

Off in the trees a beast howled.

It was not the high howl of wolves she knew from Winterfell, or even the stronger cry of the dire wolves she and her family had adopted. This was deeper, and if it was possible, she thought it sounded… angry.

She could not stay here. She had to find Sandor and help him before that wild beast or another found him… or that creature lying still near them, underground. Which meant she had to venture into the darkness under the trees on her own.

She turned to look at Stranger. He was still patiently waiting; the Hound's horse was excellently trained. But she could not take him with her through the trees, they were too closely placed. And most like he would not move for her even if she begged. No, she'd have to leave him and hope that the war horse was intelligent enough to gallop off if he needed to. Hopefully the Hound would be able to track him down later… if she could find him.

She decided to search Stranger's packs for a weapon. The Hound had left his great sword strapped to the horse's side, but the idea of her even lifting it was humorous. He'd had his dagger with him; he'd stuck it in Heyrick several times over, she thought, blanching at that memory. Maybe there was another in the packs… She found a small but sharp knife. Probably the Hound used it for cutting meat, or for picking food out of his teeth, Gods only knew! But in her small hand it fit well and she felt reassured by having it. Even if, when it came down to it, she was not sure she'd be able to use it on anyone. Or anything.

Settling herself, knife in hand, she faced the darkness under the trees and pushed her way through the undergrowth. The trees grasped for her, catching her hair and her dress until she forced her way past their scratching limbs. It was darker here, the moon blocked by the reaching limbs. She made achingly slow progress, but she knew she was on the right path when she saw the Hound's clothes strewn on the forest floor, discarded as he had run and she paused to collect what she saw. But as hard going as it was, his passage had certainly made it slightly easier for her smaller form to move through the trees, and she thought of the scratches he must have endured on his mad flight. Especially if he was… undressed. But she put that thought quickly from her mind.

Suddenly the ground fell away beneath her feet and she stumbled, grabbing a tree limb to stop her falling. Below her, down a short slope, was a hollow, a dip in the forest floor the trees had not moved into, preferring the higher ground and sunlight.

Something moved down there among the darkest shadow. She strained her eyes peering into the hollow, hoping it was the Hound.

"It's me… its Sansa"

The only response was a low, spine chilling, rumbling growl. She gripped the knife even harder, turning her knuckles white.

"Get out of there! I am looking for my friend! Go on, get!"

Her bravery sounded false even to her ears. But the growling stopped suddenly. A shape moved closer, but it was still too dark to make out what it was.

She made her way cautiously down the slope. She had to look for him, if he'd fallen, as she almost had, he might have hit his head on a rock or a stump at the bottom. Whatever was down there… well, it would just have to leave! She knew this bravery was stupid. She was being stupid again, just like she had been in Kings Landing. But she had to try.

She reached the bottom edge of the slope. Suddenly the moon snuck its way past the clouds and the thick of branches above and illuminated some of the hollow. There was no man's shape on the floor. There was no beast. She let out the breath she had been holding for far too long.

Oh, but there it was! It emerged from the shadows and she found herself falling to her knees in terror.

It was massive. If she had still been standing it's head would still have come at least to her ribs, and she was tall for her age. On her knees it seemed to stand loom above her. She thought she knew the breed, some kind of hunting dog she thought, memories working their way past her fear. They'd kept such dogs in Winterfell, though in truth she'd had little to do with them. In the moonlight its fur looked a pale brown, its muzzle darker still. It's muzzle… she saw that it was scarred and most of its right ear was missing, and only tatters remained.

No, she thought in sudden amazement and realization, that wasn't just scarring… that was the mark of fire on its muzzle. One side, up to what remained of its ear, had been... burnt. She dropped his clothes and covered her mouth in shock.

The Hound paced closer, a low growl rumbling from its throat. He bared his long, gleaming teeth, saliva dripping from them.

For a second an instinctive fear drove her wits away. But then she started to think about what she could do. She knew a little about dogs, a little more about wolves… but she also knew the Hound. And he would not hurt her, she was sure of that. And she certainly could not hurt him! So, she did the only thing she could… She dropped the pointless knife and opened her arms wide, closing her eyes… and baring her neck to him.

Seconds passed that felt like hours. But she did not feel his breath on her throat or his teeth, sharp and long as they were, anywhere near her. She cautiously opened her eyes. He was laying, belly on the ground, in front of her. Waiting.

"Good boy."

The words had slipped out of her mouth before she had time to think about what she was saying.

Thankfully the Hound only gave a snorting noise that she could imagine was some brief laughter. Had she ever heard him laugh before? There had been grim smiles when he'd tried to educate her about how their world really worked… but a laugh? It was strange that it had taken this for them to find some humour in their situation.

"Oh, what a mess this all is!"

The Hound made another rough noise, but it was hard to tell if he was agreeing or not. But then he got up and moved closer, lying down fully so that his head was just touching against her knees. Well, that was right Sansa supposed, the Hound was certainly no lap dog. But she took it as gesture of comfort. Again, so strange that in this form the human gestures he had never shown her before could be made.

It was tempting to comfort him in return, to pet his fur or stroke his ears as she had done with Lady. But she was certain that she would lose her hand if she tried that!

Tired suddenly, she moved her body so that her weight was no longer on her heels. In fact, when had she last slept? Exhaustion was creeping up on her and before she knew it she'd lain herself back on the slope.

"I'll just rest for a moment…" She spoke more to herself than to him, but she sensed him moving, sitting up again, going on guard. And then she slept.

***

Sandor

He woke before her. He hadn't realised that he'd stopped acting the guard dog and had lain down beside her on the grassy slope until he awoke in that position… but still a dog.

Seven fucking hells. Was this it then from now on? Sandor Clegane, the Hound and flea ridden dog?! How the fuck was he meant to protect her and get her home like this? Yes, he had teeth and claws, but even a simpleton with a crossbow could take him down if couldn't talk the bastard out of it, or wear armour to deflect the bolt.

The sun wasn't up, but the night was greying. They should set off soon… find Stranger where ever he had gotten to and go. And what then? Would the destrier recognise his master like this? He might get an iron-shod hoof in the head for his troubles. Even if he didn't, would he have to run alongside the stallion all the way to Winterfell? His pride rankled against the idea of hitching a cart to Stranger and riding behind him like some fat old merchant-

Suddenly he realised what had woken him in the first place. It had crept up on him so slowly he hadn't consciously noticed until now. The sparks were back and starting to speed up and down his spine. He wanted to whimper, knowing what was coming next, but he forced the noise down. If he could creep away before the fire came he wouldn't wake her. But with the first flush of burning pain under his skin the whimper forced its way out and Sansa opened her eyes. She was really only half awake, but her eyes widened as she remembered the events of the night before.

He tried to slope away, his tail between his back legs, but the flames shook his body and threw him to the floor of the hollow. Look away, he thought desperately, look away little bird. He'd give anything for her not to see his bone shattering transformation, his humiliation as the pain took him. But he thought he saw her eyes locked on him as his body twisted and reformed itself. The agony was intense, and his howl became a human scream.

When it was over he lay there, panting, unable to even think of moving. Then he heard her walking cautiously towards him, and felt her drape his clothes over him. Somehow that was the worst part of the whole fucking change. He growled at her then, but with a human mouth.

"Leave me be!"

"As you wish…" She said the words so quietly he would not have heard them if he hadn't still some of the dog with him. That slowly began to fade, and with it his stronger sense of smell.

He dressed himself quickly, noting that she sat slightly turned away from him, eyes averted. Of course, the blushing maid would not want to see his burnt and naked body. A sneer and a harsh comment formed on his lips but died as she started speaking quickly, still looking off into the woods and away from him.

"We will send ravens… as many as needed. There must be Maesters at the Citadel who have heard of such curses. Or perhaps, across the sea, the Red Priests will know of this type of dark magic. I promise, my brother in the North will send all his ravens, and give us the coin we will need to pay the Maesters or the Priests. We will find a cure!"

He walked over to a fallen bough and sat down. Her first thoughts were of finding a cure for him. His shoulders hunched, he looked dejected. He felt like a complete and utter shit.

"And we need a system. A way to communicate…" She looked at him then, realizing that he was probably dressed and as respectable as could be expected. "You have your wits when you are… when you are like that?"

"Aye, I have my wits".

"Then maybe… one bark for yes, two for no and three for danger. That seems logical…"

"And if you throw me a stick I'll bring it back for a fucking treat!"

Rage swept across her face then. He hadn't seen her angry often. In Kings Landing she had learnt to hold her emotions back so skilfully he had wondered if she still felt anything.

"If we are going to travel together and if you are going to be a… hound by night, then we need to be able to communicate! I cannot believe Heyrick had in mind just one night's transformation. We must make plans-"

"We shouldn't travel together anymore." He spoke gruffly, sharply and it stopped her in her tracks.

"But… but, I need your help." The desperation in her voice, and her wide blue eyes pleading with him, hit him like a blow to the stomach. Of course he had offered her his aid when he took her from Kings Landing. But she had never asked him for it, never made it clear how much she needed him.

"I could get you to another town. Hire you a sellsword. I have coin-"

"And he would likely rape me, kill me and take that coin before you were a league away from us!"

He'd never heard her talk so practically before. "One bark for yes, one bark for no"! Thinking ahead to her safety on the road. This Stark had learnt so much about how the world worked. But she still had so much more to learn.

"And if I get you to Winterfell, what will they do with the mandog then? Will I sleep in with your brothers' hunting hounds when the night comes? Or will they keep me in a cage as a curiosity for their fucking court?! Some monster to bring out when Lords and Ladies visit and need entertaining! Something to poke with a stick or to set to fight bears and wolves?!"

"They would never… You are under my protection!"

He laughed then, a bitter sound. Under the Little Bird's protection was he? How foolish of him to worry about simpletons wielding crossbows when he had this lady to be his shield. But the laughter died in his throat when he saw the determined look on her face. Something in him, the last part of the dog maybe, remembered then what she had actually done last night. When he had been certain he would rip her apart, aching to feel blood and flesh between his teeth, she had bared her throat to him. In that moment he had become hers in a way that 'the Hound' had never been the Lannisters'. Some of it was still the devotion of a dog for its master, but a dog would never follow a subservient pack leader. But he would serve her precisely because in that moment, when she should have feared him the most, she had put her life in his hands.

He knew he was gazing at her then, the silence standing between them. But for once he did not take a furtive glance but took all of her in. The ragged travelling cloak and dress, the knots in her hair, the smudges of dirt on her cheek. And she had never looked more queen-like, not even when she had been dressed in all her silks and satins for the little shit King.

Because he was looking at her so boldly he was the first to notice the smoke rising behind her. He leapt up from the bough and dashed to her, grabbing her by her upper arms and spinning her to see where the fire was. But there was no fire. The smoke, he saw suddenly, was coming from the ends of her red hair. No, not coming from the ends. The smoke was the ends of her hair, and second by second more and more of her hair was drifting into smoke.

She twisted to see what he was looking at, panicking.

"Sandor?!"

"Be still, little bird, be still!"

But she was looking at her hands now. At fingers that were tapering into smoky trails. At palms that likewise fell into smoke.

"The curse. He cursed us both!"

He held her still, but it was like trying to keep hold of a willow-the-wisp. Her lower arms were gone, the bottom of her dress, her legs too. Her hair was all smoke and the edges of her face were following.

"No!" he tried to grasp for what remained. Her eyes, her mouth… but they receded into smoke which billowed around him.

"NO!"

The smoke swept around him, moving faster in a swirl that started to coalesce in front of him, collapsing down to a small point near the ground. And there, when the smoke had vanished, was a small bird. It was mostly a golden brown colour, the early morning sunlight glinting off of its feathers. But the longest feathers of its wings, and the feathers on the top of its head, were a bright scarlet. When it opened its eyes, he could not doubt any longer that it was Sansa. They were a bright, Tully, blue.

"Sansa?"

The little bird chirped. Once.

"One for yes?"

She chirped again. And then she launched herself into the air and flew with a rapid staccato of wing beats up and out of the hollow into the morning sky, and away from him.

***

Sansa

She had never known such a feeling of purest freedom. She had not meant to leave the Hound, but as soon as the thought of flight had entered her mind her wings had leapt into action and taken her straight up through the reaching trees to the bright blue sky. And now she darted above the great forest, dipping down to sprint through gaps in the trees before beating her red tipped wings to fly through the wide open sky.

She was a league or so away from him, her heart still soaring with the adventure of flying, when she felt the strange resistance. It was as though she was flying against a buffeting wind, but the early day was still calm and cloudless. The further she flew the harder the wind seemed to blow, until she had no choice but to veer to her left. The resistance remained but was easier on her left side than her right. That forced her to fly in a large arc. Angling her body upwards she explored that direction. Soon the resistance curved in against her.

As a noble lady Sansa knew her numbers and a little of what the Maesters taught of shapes and their uses. She could visualize the limits of the resistance. She was in a globe, or at least a half globe, the rest perhaps being buried beneath the ground. Given that the Hound's curse and her transformation were both, she had no doubt at all, due to Heyrick, she was certain that what stood at the centre of the globe was the Hound himself.

By night he was the dog, and by day she was the bird. And they were bound together. What was it that the vile Septon had said after his deviant chanting? She remembered: "I curse you to endless days and endless nights apart." This then was the fullness of his curse, to separate them as day and night are separated, but to tie them to each other as well.

But there had been a small while when they had talked after his change… well, she had talked, bleating on about looking for a cure and how he should bark for her like some trained pup. Really, she had been trying to distract herself from the glimpses of him she had gotten after his brutal transformation. She had meant to look away, but the mystery of a man's body had intrigued her. Even if this man had been in very apparent pain! What kind of lady would do that?! Not that she had seen that much…

The little bird that was Sansa shook its head angrily. A curious gesture if there had been anyone up there in the sky with her to see it. She knew she had to fly back to the Hound. Not because they were bound together by this curse. But because…

It struck her then. All her promises to him about finding a cure, now they were promises to herself too. She could not live like this, spending every day as a small bird. Her brother Robb would not mistreat her of course, he would never think of putting her in a cage as the Hound had described. But she would still be the freak of his court, or at best a secret only whispered about behind closed doors. She could not return to Winterfell like this. If there was a cure out there then the two of them would have to find it together. She banked on her golden wings then and turned back to the heart of the globe and the Hound.

***

She found him easily, flying in a straight line with the resistance at her back. He was standing with Stranger back on the main path, scanning the sky, a hand over his eyes to block the sunlight. Looking for her.

A curious, twisted smile touched his lips as he spotted her and Sansa flew straight towards him, banking only at the last minute to execute a difficult fluttery flight around him, chirping at him in a wordless happiness at flying. At being back.

"Aah, there's the little bird."

He had unpacked his armour and put it on again and the pauldroons made a tempting perch, but she wasn't sure how he would react to her landing there and acting like a Summer Island bird. So she darted up to Stranger's saddle and settled on the pommel there instead.

"Is someone ready to travel then?"

She chirped, twice then, feeling a fool for it. No wonder the Hound had reacted as he had. Part of her, the noble part, rebelled against acting the trained pet.

"What do you want?"

There was so much to explain, about the globe, about the curse, the things she had realised. But no way to communicate unless he asked the simplest of questions she could answer 'yes' or 'no' to. It was all so… frustrating!

A burst of angry chirping came from her as she vented her annoyance in the choicest curses she had heard from him and from others in Kings Landing. She wouldn't ever have sworn like that if he could understand her, but now she knew what was so relieving about a good outburst of foul language.

The Hound looked at her, a smirk on his lips.

"Is someone annoyed?"

Chirp.

"Do you still want to go to Winterfell? To go home?"

Chirp Chirp. Gods this was embarrassing.

"Where do we go?" Again, she let forth with curses at not being able to answer, all sounding like a furious tirade of chirps and tweets.

"Now, mi'lady, that's not the kind of song I expect from you!"

Sandor looked up the path, the way that they had been heading before… all this… had happened.

"So, not Winterfell. And not fucking Kings Landing. But, little bird, any way we go we have the day and the night split apart like this."

She chirped once, realizing that he had figured some of it out too. He wasn't backward, she knew that, even if people assumed his violence and rough nature meant he had nothing intelligent to say.

"Well, may be it's that I watch you by night, and by day you scout ahead for us. We can avoid many of the dangers of the road that way. And for now at least, there's no fucking choice about where we go." He threw himself up into the saddle, skilfully avoiding her on her perch.

"Best sit up where you can see, little bird. Though heavens help the first person who calls me a fucking pirate."

He gently took her from her perch, his huge hands belying the gentleness with which he could hold her bird form, making her fluttering heart beat even harder against his palm. He moved her up on to his pauldroon, and dug his heels into Stranger to move him off down the path, picking up speed as they went. The dark rider, and the little bird on his shoulder.


	4. Chapter 4

SANDOR

Sandor was just starting to build a small fire in a clearing just off the main path when the little bird flew back from its last scouting trip. She circled the grassy spot, trailing smoke from her scarlet wing feathers, before settling on a tree stump.

"I wondered when you would be back this time. Sun's almost down."

The day's riding had been uneventful, and that was a fucking blessing given how parts of him still ached from his first change. Sansa had darted off every so often to see what lay ahead, and the forest was still quiet and unpopulated. Though not entirely. He had started to notice the occasional movement in the undergrowth or hoof print in the soil of the path that suggested that the game had returned to this part of the forest. They had finally left the evil Sept behind them.

Riding with the bird had been… pleasant in a way. The first time she had brought back the berries he wasn't sure what she wanted. But then he remembered that not only was she unlikely to have spent much time hunting in forests like these, she was also unlikely to have seen Southron bushes and trees before. She wanted to know if the berries were good to eat. And once he had told her about the berries should could forage without fear, he had found himself telling her what else he knew about these woods and their plants from the hunts he had gone on with King Robert and his twat son, Joffrey.

But it was only when she kept bringing him berries, dropping them into his palm again and again, that he had realised she was bringing him food. Not that a few berries were enough for him, but… well, it pleased him. And now he was of a mind to fetch them both something more filling.

Sansa's transformation was quick. She soon sat gracefully on the tree stump, just as though she had only stopped there for a moment's rest on an afternoon's stroll in the woods. She leapt up and started babbling something about a globe, or a sphere…

It took her a moment to realise that he was staring at her, mouth slightly open.

"I'm sorry. Is something wrong?"

"It doesn't hurt. When you change?!" He tried to contain himself, but his voice showed his tension.

"No… Oh."

He saw her face go pale and knew that she was remembering his change, the pain that had racked him, how he had panted and struggled to speak after. Pitying him most like!

"What is it like… when you change?"

He grunted, turning back to the pieces of scavenged wood he was fitting together for a small fire. She walked towards him, still speaking even though he had ended the fucking discussion!

"I felt like I was… falling apart. Drifting away. Like I had become nothing. And then I was the bird. Or Sansa."

She crouched beside him and picked up a large piece of wood and went to put it right on top on his campfire.

"Not like that! You'll suffocate the fire when I start it! Have you never made a damned fire before?!" He snapped at her, snarling like the dog again.

"No, I have not… I should learn though". She spoke so quietly sometimes, he strained to hear her.

"Aye, you should learn". His voice was gentler then and he looked at her, right into her eyes. "It's like being on fire, again. But it's everywhere… and everything."

She paused. At least she hadn't tried to give him some mock sympathy. He moved branches around until he heard her speak again.

"The curse. There's rules to it".

"Rules?" He almost laughed. "And you reckon you've figured them out?"

"Some. The day and night rule is obvious now I suppose. But there's also a limit on how far away I can fly from you. Maybe it's the same when you are the dog. There's some sort of boundary."

"Clever little shit that fucking Septon, cursing you to be stuck with me-"

"No… its not like that!"

He growled then, dismissive again.

"And how do we light it?"

"See those shavings, we need to light those first. They'll burn up quick, but they'll get the bigger pieces going. I have a tinder box to start it-"

He started to move towards his saddle bags but the sparks were starting again in his back. He had removed his armour when he had stopped, knowing what was coming, but he still had his clothes to remove. But not here.

"Its time isn't it?"

"Aye." He stood up then, and made for the edge of the trees. He had to leave her again.

***

SANSA

She'd managed to get the fire going. Sparking the kindling on the tinder box and nurturing the tiny flame had been hard but she'd persevered. She'd even made a good strong fire, bigger perhaps than the Hound would have made, but the warmth was needed tonight. The stars were out now, and she watched the smoke drift lazily up to them, forming shapes that she tried to recognise. Faces, people, Winterfell itself.

Finally she saw him. The dog was just in the shadow of the tree line, standing rock still. In his mouth dripped the carcass of a rabbit, no, two rabbits. His eyes shone in the moon light, blood covering his muzzle and sprayed down his neck. Thank the gods she knew it was the Hound or the beast would have terrified her half to death. As he loped over towards her she saw again how large the dog was. She would not want to be the rabbit who had faced that hunter.

However, the dog still had the Hound's fear of the fire, and he paused in the half-light between the camp fire and the dark woods.

"Are those for us?"

He grudgingly came closer and dropped the rabbits at her feet before moving quickly back to his half way place.

"I suppose I have to… skin them." She reluctantly picked one up, holding the scruff of its next between thumb and forefinger. The dog huffed, which could have been a laugh or a grumble that he had done enough in hunting them down some meat. She had no idea.

She got up and made for the saddle bags where she hoped Sandor had replaced the small knife she had found earlier. This was not going to be pleasant. But if they were going to eat more than the few berries she could carry back in her beak on this journey then she'd have to do it. Really concentrating on the task at hand made it a lot easier. She thought of it as she had done her needle work. We do this part, then this bit, then we need to take off that part. Finally, she found a strong branch to pierce the remains and worked out a way to support that over the camp fire.

"Yuck." It was an un-lady like expression, but her hands were covered in fresh blood.

The Hound moved around the fire cautiously to her side of it and grasped the hem of her dress in his jaws, pulling insistently but not aggressively.

"You want me to follow you?" There was a pause and then what sounded like a muffled, and reluctant, short bark.

"Very well." And she followed the dog into the woods.

It was not much of a bathing spot she thought. But it was clear that was the idea the Hound had had when he had first found the stream. He bounded ahead of her and leapt into the water, sinking his head under the water before jumping up and in to the shallower waters. For a moment she could almost forget that the dog was the man, the man who had never showed joy in anything… except maybe killing. She knelt down and thoroughly washed away the rabbits' blood from her hands and wrists, trying not to be a delicate lady about it. This part, then this bit… the words repeated in her head until her hands were clean.

Then, hesitantly she reached behind herself to unknot her plain travelling dress. The dog was drinking from the stream across from her on the opposite bank

"You'll have to… turn around."

He made an exaggerated half circle turn and sat on his haunches with his back to her. Sansa slipped from her dress, shift and small clothes. Gods, but the water was cold! She knelt down in the shallows made as quick work as she could of rubbing off the dirt and the remaining splashes of blood, trying at the same time to rub some feeling into limbs already freezing in the water. There was nothing for it; she would have to get her hair wet. She lay back into the deeper water in the middle of the stream and let it fan out around her face, much like the smoke she became when she changed. When she stood up again and pushed through the water the bank her hair flowed down her back in the moonlight like a stream of molten metal. She wrung it out as much as she could and dressed again quickly over her wet skin, the clothes clinging tight to her, but she had no choice in that. The days of maids holding out towels for her were in the past, but hopefully still in the future…

Looking up when she was dressed, she saw that he hadn't moved at all, he was as still as a statue again, every bit the guard dog.

"I'm done now…"

He bounded back across the stream and shook himself as he raced up the bank near her, splashing her with water droplets. Was he actually being… playful? She followed him back to their make shift camp and the fire, a chill creeping into her bones that she wanted to be rid of by sitting as close to the fire as possible, perching forward on a fallen tree trunk. The rabbits needed turning and she settled into focussing on the act of preparing them again, ignoring the pop and fizz sound of the fire getting to one of the creature's eyeballs. So she didn't notice at first that he was back in his pllace half way away from the fire, half way to the trees.

"Oh, come here, or you'll freeze!" She gave him her best Septa Mordene voice, but even then there seemed to be a moment of internal conflict, before one side won and he slowly padded closer to the fire. She took one of the rabbits off of the spit and held it out for him.

"No fine silver plates for us tonight I am afraid." He barked that short, strange dog laugh again, and grabbed the rabbit before tearing into it, cracking its bones between massive grinding back teeth. Sansa tried to eat more daintily, but found herself, her hunger massive even after all those berries, tearing into the small animal's flesh. Even so, she left the bones for the dog, who crushed and crunched them with gusto.

Once their meal was finished they sat there for a moment, the girl and the Hound, both staring into the fire. She imagined his thoughts were very different to her own, but she was remembering the great fire in the hall at Winterfell. With one foot she pushed away the leaves on the ground and cleared a patch of dirt between her and the fire. Finding a good strong stick she started to draw the outlines of the Great Hall, the nearby corridors, then other rooms. Her father's study. Her room. The Stables. In her mind she was walking those halls as she drew them, remembering where everything lay.

The Hound was watching her, so she started to explain.

"Next to the pantry here, was a supply room for colder meats. Arya used to go there when we were younger and write her name in the ice upon the walls."

She paused, remembering her sister. Her wild and difficult sister. Where was she now?

She suddenly scuffed the walls of Winterfell out with her foot and started to sketch again with her stick. Westeros grew outwards from Kings Landing and she talked her way through their path so far.

"You took us south out of Kings Landing, heading into the great forest down some old hunting route. As I flew I could see the sun and the position of Kings Landing on the horizon. So I know we headed south… Which was clever, because they would certainly head north on the King's Road to find us. And you must have meant to turn to the North eventually. Cutting across the Rose Road and the Gold Road… and then returning to the Kings Road after all. Which was a risky plan because they might have returned and come right upon us…"

He huffed, close to a bark for yes she thought, but he seemed non-committal too. Or maybe he was annoyed that she'd seen the flaw in his plan. Though, to be fair to him, he had not had much time to formulate it in their flight from Kings Landing.

"But now… things are different now. We need help we cannot get in Winterfell." She considered her rough map. "Oldtown and the Maesters in the Citadel. Someone there would have to know about… dark magics. Which means we need to travel down the Rose Road, through Highgarden to Oldtown"

The Hound gave a low growl that reverberated deep in his throat, he obviously did not like the idea.

"You know it will be just as safe as the King's Road would have been! Busier may be, more merchants bringing wares from Highgarden and the Dornish lands. We could disguise ourselves somehow… though, being a bird by day is a fair disguise… or we could skirt the road itself and travel across the countryside…" She fought back the yawn that had caught her unawares but it won out. The Hound sat up more stiffly, his duty as guard dog calling.

"You cannot watch me every night. Even guard dogs need to sleep."

He gave two low barks and she laughed wearily. "I will have to make a cart to carry you in and travel with Stranger by night so that you can sleep!" But she knew she would do no such thing, he would never be carried like that. Reluctantly she lay back to take her rest, the dog watching her by the warm light of the camp fire.

***

SANDOR

The Hound woke first again, and again he found himself lying next to Sansa. In the night the fire had died and not being able to stack up more wood in this form he had reluctantly lain down beside her to share his warmth. Even so she had felt the cold in the night and tried to bury herself under her travelling cloak as though the thin wool was a down stuffed blanket. Strands of red hair spread out from where she hid under it.

The sun was starting to turn the night's sky grey so he knew his change would be coming soon. Why his change had to hurt like all the fires of the Seven Hells while Sansa just drifted off into smoke he had no fucking idea. Heyrick held no special love for the girl, hadn't he wanted to feed her to the beast under the Sept? And why did she get to keep her clothes while he had to shed them lest they get ripped apart in his struggle?

He snuck away from her then and disappeared into the trees to find his breeches and tunic again, and to wait somewhere far off for the change to start. Last time, going from man to dog, he had found a branch to bite down on, to muffle his cries so as not to scare her. He wasn't sure if that would work this time, going from dog to man. His jaws were stronger, sharper. He would have to just hold it in as bes-

It started and the first howl burst from him. He knew she would wake now, and concern would be all over that pretty face of hers. But he still couldn't keep the other screams inside as the fire burned him up. When it was done he knelt on all fours, panting onto the leaves of the forest floor, expecting to see her there above him, framed by the tree branches, pity for him in her eyes. But she had not come. Concern flew through him, and he threw his clothes on as he charged, crashing through the trees, back to their camp.

She was fine. She was just bloody well sitting there on her branch, trying to pass her fingers through her knotted hair. The small tweaks of pain on her face as they caught and tugged at that auburn hair angered him further. She felt no fucking pain when she changed! His rage increased as she looked up at him and smiled, happiness radiating from her.

"I managed to get the fire going again!"

"Fucking piss poor job you did too!"

He set to poking and prodding the fire she had stacked up, ignoring the upset look upon her face. He jabbed at it as he jabbed words at her.

"The Rose Road! The fucking Rose Road!?"

"Its… its… no less safe than the Kings Road…"

"And what disguise do you think will cover up this fucking thing." He pointed viciously at his burns then, and watched her eyes dart to them and then dart away, disgusted, he thought. "And how many pretty young girls with red hair will be travelling away from Kings Landing do ye fucking think-"

"I had an idea about that… there are plants that can stain the hair…"

"See any of them here do you?!"

"Why are you being like this?!"

He snapped and growled at her then, the dog still bristling under his skin. "You live in dreams little bird, and I live in the real world! You fucking Starks are all the fucking same! Noble fools! Noble doomed fools…"

She stood up quickly then, looming above him for the first time, casting her shadow down on him by blocking out the morning light. For a long moment she stayed like that, the rage plain on her face, twisting and changing it. He wondered what she would say when she did finally open that babbling mouth of hers. Would she screech and whine about how brave her father had been, or how he couldn't talk to her like that because she was a lady? He'd talk to her however he fucking liked! But her response was worse than shouting or lecturing him on the nobility of her fucking house…

Her face suddenly calmed as though a storm had passed over. Her features set like stone in an expressionless mask before she turned and walked away from the campfire. When she got halfway to the trees he saw the smoke trailing from her, and in the next moment she leapt to the sky, the smoke consuming her and the bird suddenly flew from it and up into the sky.

He felt like the biggest shit in the Seven Kingdoms. He'd just made her retreat back inside that armour she'd crafted so well in Kings Landing.

And she didn't return all that day.

***

He hadn't realised how bloody quiet it would be without her. Even in her bird shape he had gotten used to her odd chirps and tweets. And he had also gotten used to talking to her even if she couldn't talk back. It had started with the berries, then he had begun naming the plants and trees that they passed. Then he'd started telling her about some of the campaigns he'd been on. Not the really gory details, but listing the fights he'd won, the tourneys he'd seen, the knights he'd beaten. It wasn't bragging; he'd just never realised how many words there were inside him before. And with her just listening it had been too easy to fill that silence with his stories. But without the little bird on his shoulder or keeping pace with Stranger, weaving in and out of the trees by the side of the path… Gods it was fucking quiet.

And that gave him time to think and that was fucking shit because he had to face what he'd done. He knew he had been in the wrong, lashing out at her like that. Well, he had form for that didn't he? She'd been polite to him in Kings Landing… maybe even more than polite… and he'd always delighted throwing that back in her face. And now, just because he thought she'd got the easier ride with this fucking curse… She was still cursed just like he was, whether the change was easier or not. And she never asked for that.

Seeing her brushing out her hair, hearing the happiness in her voice at having fixed the fire all by herself… those two things should have pleased him. She was learning how to be useful for the first time in her life. And her hair… he liked her bloody hair…

He stopped that thought. But others marched after it. The stream… he'd been the good dog and looked away while she bathed, but his imagination hadn't. And it wasn't even the kind of filthy things he could imagine normally, the kind of things he had done with whores in Kings Landing. All he wanted was to see her in that water… just to see her.

He was brought back to the world with a jolt. The trees were thinning, more light was streaming in towards him, a clear reddish light. The day was near done and she hadn't returned to him. If she was right about that boundary then she had no choice but to follow him, but she could still keep her distance for as long as she desired. And who would blame her?

He dismounted and led Stranger through the last sparse trees of the Great Forest, emerging out onto undulating hills. He saw her then, high up in the dimming sky. It had to be her, what other bird would wheel and swoop above him like that? Had she been waiting for him?

The little bird flew down to the edge of the trees just off to his side and landed somewhere he could not see. Moments later Sansa walked out from the dark shadows of the trees and joined him. The two of them stood in silence then, both staring at the setting sun.

Oh shit. Now he would have to apologise. Had he ever even done that before?! He cleared his throat uncomfortably and his low voice rumbled out his attempt at an apology.

"Dogs… dogs are stupid fucking beasts. You can feed them, train them, keep them in your hall and let them sit by your hearth. But some day, that stupid beast, will take it into his head to bite you. To bite the master's hand for no reason other than its there… or because that day the dog woke up in a biting mood. And when that happens the master has to beat the dog or it'll do it again someday…"

"But I'm not your master." Her voice was so quiet she was nearly whispering.

"Aye, aye you are lass." He paused, swallowing, still staring into the setting sun. "I serve your cause now. And it was your will to leave for the North that night. You didn't ask me, I offered. But it's your will I serve now. And if that takes us on the Rose Road, or any other road, I follow you, to protect you."

"You're not a dog"

He laughed bitterly. "You of all know that I am more dog now than ever before."

He felt her small hand on his arm, and he finally turned to look into those clear blue eyes.

"No… Sandor. You are more man… now… than you were in Kings Landing."

A hundred cutting remarks sprang to mind, but it wasn't her he wanted to mock.

"So…" He shifted uncomfortably. Her hand was still resting lightly on his arm. "Disguises…?"

She smiled, almost nervously and removed her hand finally before clasping it to the other one in front of her.

"There are things I will need… things we can probably only get in a place where women… where affection is negotiable."

He laughed heartily at that.

"A whore house!?"

"Yes. Women there will dye their hair to suit their… visitors… whims. Or to cover grey hairs if they wish to appear younger for them."

"Been fooled by that me self…" Sometimes he wished he could cut off his own tongue. What was he doing reminding her that he went to whores?!

If it bothered her, she didn't let on "And… and we'll need cloth, many colours if possible. Needle and thread too."

"You've been making plans."

"I had time to think while I was… there'll be villages on our way to the road wont there?"

"Aye." He spoke through gritted teeth. It was starting again.

She looked up at him, realising what was happening to him. Her face became downcast.

"I am truly sorry. This is all my fault. If I hadn't fallen…"

"And if I'd caught you." His voice deepened, the words came growling out "Or kept you from him."

She reached for his hand then, and in surprise he nearly fetched it away from her touch, his eyes widening. But her elegant fingers curled into his large calloused palm any way.

"We will find a way to break this curse. I swear it". Her youthful eyes shone with her fervour, and for a moment he could forget the fire burning through him. But it came again, stronger, and he reluctantly dropped her hand and he turned, his shoulders bowed, to walk back into the woods ready for the change to take him over.


	5. Chapter 5

SANDOR

The night was uneventful so he passed the time while she slept peacefully in memories. Things he would never share with her even if the words had begun pouring out of him during the day. Memories of Clegane's Keep, memories of lost family.

Morning came again and they passed the brief time after his change – and before hers – in the usual mundane tasks of caring for the fire and eating whatever animal he had hunted down in the night. It was rabbit again and already he was losing his desire for the meat. Then the smoke came again and she took to the skies, the Hound far below her on Stranger, his hand across his brow as he watched her beat her wings up into the sky. Her rapid wings with their flashes of red.

It was early morning when Sansa brought him back a sign that she had found a village. She held a metal peg in her small clawed feet which she dropped into his hand as she landed on his shoulder. As he rolled it in his palm he saw that it was newly cast and filed. She set off again then and he turned Stranger to follow her flight.

It wasn't long before he saw the first signs of life. White smoke drifted on the breeze at the edge of the horizon, the smoke of a controlled fire and not a burning home. As they got closer he made out larger wooden buildings on the edge of the village, some no more than one room lean to's standing against others. There was a muddy path that emerged from the grass to wend its way between the shabby homes. His body tensed, eyes darting from shack to shack looking for signs of trouble. He could sense people moving around inside them, curious about who was on the large black horse, but not willing to risk their heads by coming out to find out. He knew that although the war had passed by this village it had not entirely left them unscathed or unafraid.

Finally they came to a larger two storey building which was partly made with uneven grey stones, pasted together with a thick dark grey mortar in slapdash way. Hanging from one of its brick walls was a cracked and faded painted sign, letting them know that they had reached the King's Hope. It didn't look like a very bloody hopeful place, and he wasn't sure he'd been in a worse dump. But they might be able to find what the little bird wanted there.

He dismounted and tied Stranger up to tree's lower branch. Anyone fool enough to try to steal the immense black warhorse would not be a breathing fool for long. Sansa flew over and perched in the same tree, peering down at him with those odd blue eyes. He looked around quickly for watching eyes and whispered up to her.

"Stay here. I'll check out the inn and look for… those things." He walked into the building, a hand resting casually on the pommel of his great sword, his muscles tensed and ready.

The inside of the inn lived up to his expectations. It was dark and dank, and the shadows were occupied by grim looking farmers and farm hands nursing ale in cracked leather cups. There were rough wooden stairs leading upstairs to a row of three doors. To the right of the base of the stairs was a shadowy doorway, leading to the barrels and other stores no doubt. The greasy landlord shuffled over as Sandor took a seat at the table with the least food and ale spilt over it.

"Ale." He barked at the man who nodded nervously and shuffled back to the shadowy door, disappearing inside before returning rapidly with a leather cup for him.

Leaning back in the wooden chair he looked around. He was more and more convinced that there was nothing here that would help them; this was hardly Littlefinger's whore house in Kings Landing. Some nowhere inn in some nowhere village wouldn't have hair dyes and all that other crap she needed. Even if there was a woman… serving here, and there was no sign of that, what were the chances she'd even have the coin for those sorts of things? He'd drink his ale, and they'd carry on their ride towards the Rose Road. Little Bird would have to look elsewhere.

But he was just taking his third or fourth reluctant swallow of the piss weak ale when a woman's coarse laugh rolled out of one of the upstairs rooms, followed by a tall skinny man with no chin leaving the room with his breeches still half undone. No Chin boldly walked down the stairs with a smug smile on his sallow face. Eventually he was followed by a full bodied woman with deep dark brown hair who came down stairs to take up a lounging position by the serving bar, her cleavage apparent above her loose dress and pushed forward on purpose.

The Hound took out his coins and jangled them towards the barkeep. He watched the woman veer into the barkeep's path, holding up a hand to stop him, before grabbing the pitcher out his hands and coming to the Hound's table with it. He'd hooked her easily enough.

"More ale, m'lord?"

"Aye. Though less of the m'lord." She poured it for him, making sure to lean just a little further forward than she needed to.

"We don't get many round here with your obvious talents…" She eyed him up, or his coins at least. She seemed to barely notice his burns. Silver was more to her liking. "At fighting that is." She giggled inanely.

"Aye. Doesn't seem like you get much of anything in this shit hole."

She giggled again, and the Hound hated her and the stupid fucking noises she made. It wasn't much of a joke and her interest was as false as he hoped her hair colour was. But how was he going to get a hold of her dye if she was really colouring it?

"Can I join ye? You look like a man who has a few stories to tell." She sat at the table before he even had a chance to offer her a chair. "And it gets so bloody boring here."

Now that she was closer he could see the lines around her eyes and mouth, even in the dark of the inn. She wasn't a fair woman, but he'd seen worse. She had strong features, a wide mouth full of yellow brown teeth. In fact, she shared some of the look of the barkeep.

He gestured at the barkeep. "Will your father approve?"

She giggled again and batted at him with a paw. "Oh you! That's my brother!"

Of course he knew that, but he wanted to be sure of her age. The barkeep's remaining hair was steel grey all around the back of his head. He forced a smile at her.

"And what will your brother say to you sharing a drink with the likes of me?"

"He can keep his bloody opinions to himself!" She cackled then, and took his cup to drink from, looking over the edge of the cup in a way she must have imagined was seductive. "I do as I please… and I please very well."

The rest of the afternoon passed painfully. He made sure she had two cups to every one of his, but even so the inn spun around him as he finally got her up to her room.

It was a poor woman's attempt at a boudoir. She'd doused some scraps of material in a cheap perfume to hang around the room and the smell hit him as he dipped his head to go through the doorway, almost carrying her as she staggered drunkenly in. The bed was a mountain of cushions and blankets in a variety of clothes and colours. And over the glass-less window a thin woven scarf was hung, casting a red glow to the room in the daylight.

The woman, Gilda she'd told him huskily, threw herself back onto the bed and arranged her large form into what she thought was a seductive pose. There was a moment, just a moment mind, when Sandor was tempted. He'd not had a tumble for… well, he couldn't remember the last. There had been some bored whore in Kings Landing who he'd paid to ignore her disgust at his scars, and who'd gone off to service another customer as he'd slept off his drink on her couch. And while Gilda was fucking annoying she was also warm and willing. And as shit as the ale had been, it had done its job.

But as she reached forward to grasp drunkenly at his breeches he recoiled from her, stumbling back against a dresser and knocking bottles to the wooden floorboards.

"Nooo! My perfume from Kings Landing!" She stumbled on to her knees and grabbed for the bottles.

"Let me help. What's this one?" He grabbed an opaque bottle.

"Gimme that!" She grabbed it with her large hands and clasped the bottle to her bosom. "Can't replace that… do you know how hard it is to get the colour right!"

He grabbed her then, roughly seizing her by the hips and forcing his lips on hers. It was enough to distract her. "Let me put that back out the way here" He palmed the bottle and hid it away under the bed before lifting her and swinging her back onto the bed, ignoring her attempt at a girlish shriek. He nuzzled into her neck and chest to give him time to work out how to make his escape with the bottle.

Suddenly the sound of bird's song filled the room. Both of them looked at the window in astonishment at the small brown and red bird standing there, singing its heart out. The woman melted, a big soppy smile on her face, while Sandor frowned, how long had she been there?

"How pretty!" She flung herself further across the bed, too unsteady to attempt to walk around it and closer to the bird. "If only I still had that old cage…"

Quickly Sandor gathered some of the cushions and blankets, wrapping the bottle in them and charged to the window. "Let me catch it for you… m'lady"

Sansa flew off before he got there and he flung his haul out of the window after her.

"You fucking idiot!" She went to race downstairs to get them, but he stopped her with another rough kiss.

"Let me get them for you lass." Before she could react he crashed out of the room and ran unsteadily down the stairs and out of the inn. Outside he gathered up the pile and quickly untied and mounted Stranger. Gilda leant out of the window and swore the air blue, shaking her fist at him, but soon the noise retreated behind him as he galloped the destrier out of the village.

Eventually he quietened the horse's pace and waited as the bird rejoined them.

"The Hound" he said bitterly, "Fucking thief of women's cushions and dyes… If this story ever gets out I'll never show me face again, disguise or not." He growled.

Sansa chirped then in what could have been laughter, before launching into her song again. Suddenly he didn't care so much about his reputation. She sang for him for the rest of that day.

***

SANSA

Sansa knelt by the still pond he had found for her, using the dog's sense of smell to track it down. The Hound sat on his haunches nearby, his face unreadable in his current form. In the moonlight she could just make out her reflection in the water as she forced her fingers through her long knotted hair again, humming a song she only half remembered. The bottle of dye lay by her side, along with the Hound's small knife, and as she looked down at them she wished she had some of the Hound's ale from the inn to steady herself for this. It was only hair, it would regrow. But all her life she had been marked out for her Tully hair. The colour and length often drew comments and admiration. It was a part of who she was…

"But hair grows back." She grabbed the knife and suddenly hacked at it, sawing back and forth across it, cutting it to just above her shoulder. The Hound jumped up onto his paws and started towards her. "It's just hair, it's just hair…" she repeated the words to herself, wanting to believe them, but there were still tears in her eyes. The Hound whimpered.

"It's not that bad really." She turned her head from side to side looking at her reflection. "I would never pass for a stable boy like Arya, but it's hardly the hair of a noble lady in King's Landing anymore." She measured out a portion of the thick oil from the bottle and ran it through what remained, slicking it back to her head and making her look like a stranger, even to her own eyes. She sang the hymn of the Seven several times, gauging roughly the time it would need to work. Then finally she rinsed it from her head in the still pond. After her hair was the same dark brown as Gilda's, but with her fair skin and thin features she looked entirely different, like a ghost in the moonlight. A ghost but definitely not a Tully… but also not quite a Stark. She wasn't sure what House she could claim now.

"I'll need a name." She pursed her lips, thinking. "I'm travelling with a fine horse and a fine… hound. I could be some southron noble's bastard. A 'Flowers'… no, not a Flowers, not when we travel to Oldtown. A 'Hill' maybe."

He'd huffed at the suggestion he was a fine hound, but was quiet after. She knew his family lands were in the West, near Casterly Rock. Hills were bastards from the Westerlands. Somehow that felt right to her though… not that she'd ever pretend he was her father! But the connection between her name and him seemed right to her, if he was indeed serving her cause now.

"And I suppose I could be a Jeyne… it's a common enough name." He growled his disapproval. "Well, if you have a better suggestion?"

Of course he could not voice his opinion in more than barks and growls, so he did not try.

"Maybe tell me in the morning, when we have our time together." She yawned and stood up. "Come, I'll set the fire before we sleep." The massive mastiff padded after the slight girl with the jagged dark hair and followed her back into the woods to their camp.

***

SANDOR

The Rose Road was busier than he'd hoped, as busy as he'd feared. Traders with wayns, walking peddlers, Septas travelling together by donkey… all the life of Westeros was here. Sansa still needed a needle and thread for whatever her disguise for him was, but they had had no choice but to merge with the travellers on the road towards Highgarden for now. Stranger drew glances, but his great sword turned them away. And even if they recognised him and his scars, he hoped that few here would have heard of their escape from Kings Landing and any likely bounty on his head. At least not yet.

Sansa flew high above them, keeping out of sight. She couldn't perch on his shoulder and not draw attention. But that meant she could not rest either. They had agreed that she would seek a safe place to stop regularly, but he missed being able to talk to her… at her. He fell back into a dark place in his head as the miles crept slowly under Stranger's hooves. A galloping horse would draw eyes, so he stuck to an agonisingly slow pace that Stranger strained against.

As evening came he waited until it was quiet and nudged the horse off the loose gravel and over the crest of a hill, out of sight of the road itself. There he removed his armour and tied it to Stranger's saddle. The little bird swooped and twisted around the man and the horse, her red feathers catching the setting sun's light. At least that had not changed with the bloody dye, he thought gruffly, still annoyed she'd cut her hair although he could not say why. He knew it was the best way to disguise her true name, but even so… he was still enraged by it. As soon as she had changed back into her human shape and was walking towards with a warm smile him he channelled his anger towards her once more.

"We never finished our fucking discussion…!" They had been 'in discussion' for much of their brief time together that morning and still no agreement had been reached.

"Jeyne is a fine name. I had a friend called Jeyne in Winterfell." Her lips went thin, annoyance plain.

"Too plain"

"Plain is good. Plain is forgettable."

"It don't fucking suit you."

She ignored the cursing, as she always did. "It's just a name…"

"Don't like what you did to your hair either."

"It was necessary."

"Looks ugly"

"It'll grow!" Even her patience with him was wearing thin, he could see that. But he had to keep on prodding didn't he, fucking fool. Maybe he was cross at himself for making her change this much. Maybe she should have stayed in Kings Landing where it was safe…

"Don't do that!"

"Do what?!" He barked at her.

She put her hands on her hips. "I can see when you are regretting taking me away from…"

He talked over her. "You don't see shit! If I hadn't-"

She stopped then, not willing to shout over him.

"We get so little time…" She was near whispering, forcing him to listen just by being quieter than him. "So little time together. Do we have to argue? It's just hair. It's just a name."

He sat down heavily on the bank of the hill, frowning. He knew she was right. But where was Sansa now? Where was the long red hair he'd first seen at Winterfell? It had caught his eye then. She had.

She came and sat next to him, curling her legs up to one side. She looked up at him, fronds of her short dark hair falling over one eye.

"What name do you like?"

He looked down at her and fought the urge to push that hair out of her face and to tuck it behind an ear. She did that anyway, it was already becoming a habit with her. Something that dried up old Septa would have scolded her for he was sure, but it was a sweet gesture. He supposed.

The change would be coming soon and it made him angrier still. He had to bite down on the word that wanted to come out. What name did he like? 'Sansa' of course. But she couldn't be Sansa anymore.

He stood quickly, staggering slightly as the first pains came and shedding his clothing quickly. Damn, it had snuck up on him! And for the first time since the first time, she had to watch him change again, even if she averted her eyes from his nakedness. Her face grew even paler under her chopped up dark hair as she heard him try to hold in the screams. He growled at the look of compassion on her pretty fucking face, bearing his fangs at her, dripping saliva to the grass underneath him. He knew he was scaring her. He knew he loomed over her in this form when she sat on the ground, but the pain of the change near drove the man out of him.

"Please… please don't." She whispered.

He shook his muzzle then, shaking out the bad dog, and turned tail to run across the open grassland and the rolling hills, his long gait taking him far away and fast.

***

SANSA

She was scared, even more scared than she had been when the dog had turned on her. She knew, even as his teeth had flashed and his eyes shone with a fever, that he would not hurt her. He could never hurt her. But Stranger… he might.

She walked slowly towards the immense black destrier, her hands held out wide, heart pounding in her chest. In the early night sky the moon was hidden behind a dingy cloud and the horse's shape was hard to make out against the dark hills around them. But he wasn't scoring the earth with his hooves or rolling his eyes until the whites showed.

"Do you want something nice to eat?" She slowly reached forward for his bridle and he nickered and moved his head away. Destriers were trained to be weapons in battle. The best, like Stranger, would kill or die for their rider and no one else but that rider would be able to ride the beast. The garrons in the North and the palfreys she had ridden were biddable creatures. Stranger was not. But destriers were also meant to be intelligent whereas palfreys were foolish horses for foolish ladies. Now, where did that thought come from?

Would Stranger let her ride him? She could of course wait here until the Hound returned. He'd probably be hunting now, taking his anger out on some more rabbits. But she was sick of rabbits. She'd flown over so many traders on the road today and spied apples, carrots, and all manner of more exotic fruits from Highgarden. And Stranger had to be bored of grass.

She pulled gently on his bridle and her heart leapt into her mouth as he pawed the ground once. But then he followed her towards the bottom of the rise where the ground had fallen away, most likely weakened by a warren or den she thought, and had formed a natural ledge. She could stand on the ledge and gain the height she needed to mount him. Of course, at Winterfell, she had ridden side saddle. This would pose a challenge, but as long as she didn't try to gallop she should be okay. Or, she hoped she would not be made to gallop… if Stranger decided to, she would have no way of stopping him.

She was on his back before she could give herself the chance to be more afraid. Stranger shied slightly, but he settled quickly, trotting forward. Riding like this was new to her, but she instantly saw how much more connected to the horse and his temperament she was this way. He wasn't going to bolt.

She clicked her tongue against her teeth as her father had shown her how to do so many years ago, and gently pushed her heels into Stranger's sides. He walked on, a steady calm pace, back to the road.

Stranger spotted the campfire first, nickering and pausing on the road. It twinkled in the distance like a red star fallen to the ground. It was just off to the left of the road itself, and occasionally dark shapes moved around it and cut off its light.

"Well boy, that was what we were looking for." She urged him forward.

Sansa had started having doubts about this adventure of hers not long after she had managed to get herself onto Stranger's back. Maybe she should have stayed hidden back where the Hound could find her again. Maybe someone would try to force her down from the horses back, or make him bolt and throw her. Maybe the people by the campfire were thieves, killers and rapers. There were quite a few ways that this could go wrong…

But they drew closer and finally she could make out three figures by the fire. An old man and woman who were so similar she could not tell for a moment which was the man and which the woman. Both were hunched over as they walked about the fire, adding twigs and chatting to each other. Both wore ragged clothes in greys and browns, layered up for the chill she did not feel this fine evening. Both had long scraggy grey hair, but only the man had a long thin whispery bear to match. They had the same wrinkles around their eyes, the same gaps in their mouths where teeth were long gone. And as she rode closer they turned to her with matching wary faces.

The third figure at the fire was the first to hail her. The blood fled from her face as she recognised his robes and the seven pointed star at his chest. But he could not look less like Heyrick. This Septon was red of face and rotund, his hair had vanished years before and his nose was large and bulbous. And his robes were fine and his seven pointed star made of beaten silver. He stood and held a hand a loft.

"Blessings of the Seven upon you."

"And on you." She stayed on Stranger's back as the three of them looked her over.

"What is a young girl like you doing on the road at night?" That was the old woman, but until she checked for the beard she wasn't sure. And even then she had a few whisps of hair on her chin. Sansa rankled at the description of her as a girl, but however much Kings Landing and their flight had aged her on the inside she did indeed still look like a young girl on the outside.

She opened her mouth to lie, and the truth came out instead. "I am running away."

The old woman gave a smile to the old man, as if to say, I told you so. "From where dearie…?"

She had thought some of her lie through, weaving it in her mind with the truth.

"From Kings Landing. My father took me there to make a match with an old friend-in-battle he owed his life to. But I did not like his foul breath and whoring ways…" the Septon huffed and puffed at her language "So I prayed to the Maiden." He liked that more, "and then I dreamt of escaping on my father's horse. And now here I am. Following the dream the Maiden sent me…"

The old woman smiled broadly and even the Septon seemed mollified by her account of her purity, but the old man sneered. Perhaps he sided with the old warrior who wanted to wed and bed her, and felt for his loss.

"And what's yer name girl?"

"Jeyne… Jeyne Hill."

"A bastard then! You should have been grateful to your father for taking the time to find you a match!" The Septon nodded thoughtfully, children should obey their fathers.

"I am travelling now to Highgarden to seek sanctuary with the Sept there and to dedicate my life to the gods…" She won the Septon back then, but the old man just shrugged and turned back to his fire.

"Come down from there little one" smiled the old woman, "We have food we can share. My brother and I are traders, we have fruits and vegetables. And the Septon here, Mallon, he has promised us a reading from the Seven Pointed Star."

"Or perhaps you would like to sing us one of the hymns of the Seven" grumbled the old man, still not entirely happy with her story no doubt. Sansa accepted the fat Septon's help down from Stranger's back, but she could not shake her fear of him. Heyrick had done much harm to the gentle Septons who did exist out there in the Seven Kingdoms. She tied Stranger up near the Septon's pony and the twins' mules. He loomed over the other beasts and they shied away from him, but he ignored them.

"A song?" The female twin looked at her expectantly.

"Perhaps I should know who I am singing to?"

"Well, as I said, that's Septon Mallon, and I'm Florace, and that's me twin brother Dolan." Sansa bobbed her head to the two mean, lifting her skirts ever so slightly for what she thought a bastard's inept curtsey might look like. She took a seat on a fallen log next to Florace and accepted her offer of a pig iron plate. Above the campfire a stew of vegetables was simmering in a black bellied pot. There was a pause, they obviously expected her to sing for her supper then.

She started quietly, giving the first few notes of the song that came to mind, The Mother's Song, before gaining her confidence.

"Gentle Mother, font of mercy,  
save our sons from war, we pray,  
stay the swords and stay the arrows,  
let them know a better day.  
Gentle Mother, strength of women,  
help our daughters through this fray,  
soothe the wrath and tame the fury-"

She paused, suddenly seeing the light of the campfire reflecting off of eyes in the darkness beside the road. Florace followed her gaze and screamed as the dog walked forward into the circle of light the campfire made around them. The two men stumbled to their feet, dashing awkwardly for hidden daggers in their packs.

"Wait! Please!" They paused, eyes wide with fear. "He's… he's my father's hunting dog. He's been with me since he was a puppy and he's been following me on the road!" The words tumbled out and she hoped their fear would mask her lie well enough.

"Seven Hells – excuse me Septon – that's a big dog!" Dolan exclaimed.

The Hound carefully made its way around the fire and came to sit by Sansa. To add sugar to the cake, he then rested his head on her knees. Don't overplay it! Sansa thought furiously.

"Looks… looks like he's very loyal." Florace stammered, while trying to edge her way further along the tree trunk, away from the girl and her dog.

"Aye, he is." Sansa looked down at the Hound, trying to figure out how much trouble she was in for taking Stranger. He looked up with his sad grey eyes, the scars that pulled his eye down on that one side adding to the sorrowful look. She raised a hand cautiously, and then ran her palm down over the top of his head.

"Oh you are brave girl! I'd be counting my fingers if I put my hand anywhere near those fangs!" Florace twittered, but Sansa was calm. She stopped stroking his head.

"Might we have some food now?"

The three travellers near fell over themselves to get it for her.

***

CERSEI

The knock came at her door during the hour of the owl. It was quiet, but insistent. She had not been asleep anyway but her face quickly set in an imperious mask at the interruption. Standing from her desk, she put her wine glass down and swept to the door in her yellow silk nightdress, ready to roar at whoever it was who thought to disturb her. Even though every night since the battle had been disturbed by dreams of green fire anyway…

But the presence of the man on the other side of her inner door stilled her fury. It wasn't that she immediately knew him… it was that she couldn't be sure that she didn't. His face, plain, neither handsome nor ugly, was familiar and yet not familiar. He could have been old, or young, she couldn't place his age at all. Who was he? It was as though she might have seen him in passing a thousand times, but never really seen him. But she recognised the seven pointed star at his neck. He bowed deeply.

"There are official hours for audiences. Where are my guards?!"

"Excuse me your Grace."

"Go."

"I could return during the King's audience. But I think we would both prefer that what I speak of remains between us."

He was in her room. When had that happened? Cersei suddenly felt as though she was at some great height and vertigo had her in its grasp.

"And what would you speak of, Septon?"

He gestured to seats by the hearth and she swept into one as he took the other, a low table with wine and goblets on it sat between them.

Wasn't she the Queen Regent here? And yet she obeyed his silent commands.

"The Lady Sansa…"

"…Is unwell. She has been unwell since the battle not three weeks ago." Cersei knew the lie had strong roots. Newly hired maids had even been tending to a red haired girl they had found on the streets. Locked away in Sansa's rooms, only rumours of her sickness found a way out.

"The Lady Sansa left the Red Keep and Kings Landing the night of the battle. She left with Sandor Clegane."

Cersei kept her mask on, hiding the rage she'd felt since discovering the bloodied white cloak in Sansa's room on that morning.

"That is simply not true."

The Septon sighed. "It is true my grace. She travels with him now. And you have sent his brother North to hunt for them."

Cersei leant forward, the low fire casting a red glow on her face even in its death throes.

"Even if that were true… Septon… why would I even care to send the Mountain after the Hound? Why now when we are at war and I need him for other tasks? Why would I care that the Hound is raping her every which way on their way North and planting his damned whelps inside her… let him."

The Septon held up a hand, and she was silenced. Her Lannister eyes flashed fire at him, but he was not afraid.

"There are many reasons why you care. Political reasons. But there are also personal reasons." He leant forward then, and whispered. She barely heard the words, but they struck home. "Why should she be free to do as she wishes when you are not…"

Cersei leant back in the highbacked chair.

"Who are you?"

"Just a Septon. Call me Ektor."

"And what do you want?" He poured her wine and held it up to her. "What is the Church's interest in the Stark girl? My father already makes new alliances with the Tyrells… She is not needed any more, nor her traitor blood."

"The Hound and the fleeing bird went south my Grace, and they came across a small Sept maintained by a brother of my order. Then they headed west on the Rose Road… We are a small order within the Church. But we look after our own. The Hound murdered our brother, and the two of them stole something from us… a relic you might say. I want it, and them, back." He gestured and out of the shadows came a tall thin man in black leather. His eyes were flat and cold, much like Ilyn Payne's.

Cersei leapt up.

"You go too far, Septon! Who is this man!"

"You had the Hound. We also have our dogs. This is Kai. He can track the Hound and his lady."

"Why tell me all of this? Why not release your dog and let him drag the Hound and his whore back? Or rip their throats out, either as you wish…"

"A king's warrant would make his journey easier."

"Done. Anything else the Queen regent can do for you?" The sarcasm dripped from her tongue like black poison, but if Ektor cared he did not show it.

"I will be… more visible in court from now on. I thought it best to introduce myself."

"You want to be High Septon? I don't have a problem with that… the current one was chosen by my twisted little brother after all…"

"No my Grace. I will be your confessor."

Cersei laughed coldly. "I am afraid that will be a very dull job for you Septon Ektor. I have very little to confess."

He smiled and stood. Kai went to his side, ready to leave.

"It is not your confessions I am interested in, but everyone else's" He bowed then, and the two men left.

Cersei immediately went to her desk and unrolled a parchment to write on.

She wrote out the words in her elegant hand: They are on the Rose Road.


	6. Chapter 6

SANSA

She dreamt of Winterfell.

Bare footed she walked the empty halls and corridors of her home. Drifts of snow had been swept by the wind into corners and piled up against the grey stones of the walls. The limbs and shrieking faces of the silent dead lay partially in them, motionless. She walked past the blue and frozen bodies, trailing an endlessly long white cloak behind her that swept the snow away and uncovered the bodies. Blood marks stained its length.

Bare foot she walked. Then she flew, then walked again, then padded on four paws. She was a lady, she was a bird, she was a wolf. She was a ghost in Winterfell. Winterfell was the ghost in her.

A dog howled, echoes chasing her. She began to run, the pale limbed bodies reaching for her. She saw faces she knew once, her father's, her mother's, her own.

She was in a bed. He was on top of her again, smelling of fire and smoke. He demanded a song and took a kiss. His lips were hard and demanding, the scars feeling strange against her mouth. His hand reached around her back and pulled her closer, urging her to respond as he moved against her. But she was still, her face a mask. Then she was smoke and he could not catch her with his outreaching hands. She saw his tears again, green in the wildfire light. But she was smoke and could not feel, could not care.

As smoke she drifted in a half sleep. Until the smoke stilled and became stone under the ground. She was in the crypt, and trying to scream through a carved mouth, trying to move stone limbs and open stone eyes. The statues all screamed silently with her. Lyanna, Rickard, Brandon, her father, her mother…

She woke suddenly.

She was on the Rose Road, sleeping by a campfire with three snoring strangers and a dog lay by her side. And she was not smoke or stone, or frozen in the snow. She was Sansa Stark.

She drifted back to sleep… eventually.

***

SANDOR

The Hound almost didn't want to wake her. He had snuck off before the sky had started to turn grey and waited for his change far enough away that he wouldn't wake the travellers. Returning to the camp now, he dressed quickly from Stranger's packs, and then crouched beside her. In the half light of morning her hair was pitch black, her skin bone white. One arm lay above her head, her hand curling slightly above the halo of dark hair. He gently touched her other arm and her clear blue eyes opened slowly, watching him as he put a finger to his lips.

She followed him and Stranger out of the camp then, through a morning fog, her skirts brushing the dew from the grass. He didn't speak until they were well away from the twins and the Septon, and even then his voice was low and quiet.

"Do you know how many men Stranger has killed?" He did not look back to her and they walked on in silence until he spoke again. "I hope you know by now that I want you alive little bird".

"I am sorry."

"Aye. Lucky for you the soft headed beast likes a pretty girl. Never knew that. None ever came near him before." Stranger nickered and shook out his mane. "You're brave girl. Brave but stupid."

A thought seemed to occur to her then. "I got the needle and thread! Florace wouldn't take any coin for them-"

"And they got a song… a few songs. You have a good voice." His booted feet crunched loudly on the gravel and dirt of the road as they rejoined it. The morning was foggy and wet, and for as far as they could see into the creeping whiteness they were all alone on winding road. He looked back to her just in time to see the last of her blush. "Don't let that go to ye head. It was still a stupid fucking risk to take."

He set to tightening and organising Stranger's packs, untying his armour and putting it on. Avoiding her face. But when he looked again, she did not look sad. Her head was upturned, looking up to the grey of the morning sky.

"You want to fly."

"Yes… I… no. Yes I do. Do you enjoy being the dog? At all?"

He stopped what he was doing and turned fully to face her.

"I've always been the dog, girl…"

"Yes, but hunting and running…?"

"I've hunted… I've run men down. Boys even, like that boy up North. I've killed like an animal before." He took no pleasure in her pale face and her downcast look, but she had to remember who he was. Just as she had to remember that Stranger was a weapon.

"I see." Something that had opened to him then closed up tight again in her face. Her lips pursed and her eyes were cold. When the smoke came, she turned and changed quickly, flying away from him again.

***

There were other men on the road who rode alone, like him. Older men with stern eyes and serious set mouths like him. As they passed each other their eyes would drift to the other's armour, their swords, judging the newness, the quality. A sellsword or hedge knight with good armour and weapons was good at his job and more dangerous than a traveller on his own with pockmarked armour and a badly weighted sword. The Hound no longer wore his Kingsguard armour and his old armour made eyes slide over him with contempt. That was for the best. Let them think that they could beat him and then they were less likely to bother to challenge him.

Occasionally a rider would pull alongside him and ask questions about the land and road snaking out behind him. Were there skirmishes? What of Kings Landing? Some had heard of the battle of Blackwater Bay. Some had heard of the green fire. But so far, none had heard about him escaping with the King's bride-to-be nestled against him.

Some of them stared at his scars, but if they knew him they did not say. Maybe they'd heard about the savage dog that guarded the king and held their tongues. Maybe they'd heard about the things he'd done for that cunt, and his father before him. Fuck'em. Let'em be scared.

Two travelling together wanted a third for a game of cards and chance, hoping to rook the man travelling on his own. They never saw the bird in the branches behind them, the sound of its tweeting merging into the other sounds of the road and countryside. They didn't know he had eyes on their cards the whole time. Though he would have to ask the lady later how she knew which were the good cards and which the bad cards.

After, as he walked away with their coins in his palm, one of them drew a dagger. He left them both there, on the side of the road, with broken limbs but still alive. He'd also felt the bird's blue eyes on him the whole bloody time.

He reached an inn on the road as the day was turning dark and cold. The Rose in Bloom was a completely different establishment to the King's Hope. Fattening itself on the passing travellers on the Rose Road, the Bloom was a three storey stone building, its sign was clear and recently painted, the main room inside clean and brightly lit. Even so, he found a dark corner to take while he assessed the other travellers in the room. A few men with daggers at their waists, but on the whole this was a place for large purses and larger traders. He had the sellswords' coins as well as his own so he got a keep's attention and asked for a room.

The bird joined him there, once he'd opened the thick warped glass in the window. She perched on a roof beam as servants brought in a tub and scalding hot water, followed by two chickens with gravy and vegetables. As they left the smoke drifted down from the beam followed by the form of Sansa alighting on the floor. She sat opposite him, the plate untouched in front of her as he tore into hers. Was she so quiet because of what he had said earlier? He couldn't bring it up again, so he snapped at her instead.

"Eat up girl. You're not waiting for a prayer are you?!"

"Can we afford all of this?" She delicately picked up her cutlery and he was shamed into doing the same.

"Aye. Don't fret about it. And there's a bed for you tonight."

She looked wistfully at it. "That does look good."

He chuckled deeply. "There's the Lady Sansa." She smiled back at him then looked at the bath, still steaming slightly, in the corner.

"Is that also for me?" She pulled a face. "Because you could do with a bath too…"

He grunted. "There's no time. Not if I wait until after your turn-"

"No, of course not. You should bathe now, before… before you change."

"And leave you with the water after?" She shrugged, another unlady-like gesture the old Septa would have boxed her ears for, he thought.

"It won't kill me. But the way you smell might…" She smiled, almost viciously, at him. "And Winterfell wasn't so grand that I did not share water occasionally with Arya. And she could be very… grubby."

He held up his hands in surrender. She kept herself at the table, turned away from the bath as he quickly stripped and dunked himself. He cleaned the dirt off his skin brusquely, scrubbing with the brush they had provided and the tiny sliver of soap. But as he was getting out, the water cresting with his movements, when he felt the first of the sparks. He just made it to the bed as they came stronger, grabbing his sword belt to bite down on as the flames ran over his skin.

Then he felt her small cool hand in his. He looked up into her blue eyes and the pain… it didn't vanish, but it suddenly felt like it was a hundred leagues away, hurting some other Sandor in some other room. Then the change twisted him and he saw her eyes open wider as it happened, but he rode the change this time instead of it riding him, afraid of crushing her hand if he let the pain take him.

The dog jumped down from the bed and shook off what water remained and Sansa threw her hands up as she was splashed.

He saw her look down at her damp dress and reach behind herself for the knots she needed to undo. The Hound padded away before she slipped from her dress and small clothes and quickly into the water. Embarassment was an odd feeling both for the dog and the Hound, but he knew the water was filthy now and it shamed him. She didn't seem to mind, and he soon heard her humming a song to herself, the water splashing as she moved to clean her soft limbs and to wash her hair. He tried not to think about that too much.

Then he heard her leave the bath tub and move around picking up her clothes, still singing to herself. She leant back against the window frame then, resting a bare foot on the wall as she stared up at the stars. He padded over and stood by her side, feeling her finger tips gently resting on his fur.

"When the sun shone in Winterfell, the snow was like white sheets on the ground. I'd run out with my brothers and Arya… and they'd always tease me about the Wildlings that would come and abduct me if I wasn't careful. A big, rough, hairy man would throw me on the back of his horse and take me for his wife. I'd pull a face because I wanted a sweet smelling knight who'd crown me the Queen of Love and Beauty at his first tourney…" She whispered, speaking more to herself than to him.

She shook her head. "I should sew the disguise I had in mind for you." She took herself away from the window and her memories and collected what she needed from the saddle bags he'd brought up with him. There was the needle and thread from Florace and the material from Gilda's cushions. Then she sat down at the table with a look of concentration on her face and started to pull the material apart, using his knife to cut it where it was strong. He sat on his haunches and watched her at her work.

By the time she was happy with what she'd made the candle had burnt low. Rubbing her eyes, she picked it up by the holder and carried it with her to the bed.

"We should sleep… we don't know when we'll have another chance to rest in a proper bed."

She lay down on top of the sheets and curled herself up, her bare feet poking out from under her dress. He wondered why she wore it still, maybe she was too tired to undress. Or maybe she didn't want his gaze on her. So he took his guard dog stance, turning slightly away from her.

"No. Sleep up here, with me." He huffed and leapt up on to the bed, making it creak as he lay down, stretching himself out beside her as she blew out the candle.

***

SANSA

Sansa felt the insistent pull on her dress and woke slowly. The room was still dark but the dog had the hem of her roughspun travel dress in its jaws and was pulling. She slid off of the bed and stood up unsteadily.

"What… What time is it?" He continued his pull, dragging her to the saddle bags. She packed their few belongings and picked them up, clasping them to her chest as the dog pulled her towards the door. "You want us to leave?"

He barked a muffled yes, and sprang forward to lead the way down the inn's stairs. In the main room bodies were still sleeping in the wooden chairs and couches. Poorer patrons who could not afford the rooms were happy to settle where they could for the night.

Sansa carefully stepped over them, replacing her low heeled shoes as she went. The dog waited impatiently at the main door for her and she followed him out in the yard and to where Stranger was stabled. She tied on the saddle bags as she had seen the Hound do it and led the great black horse away from his overnight companions in the stable. Following the dog, she realised suddenly what was happening. This wasn't a quick escape because of danger…

"You don't intend to pay!" She whispered sharply under her breath.

The dog carried on ahead of her, not responding. Sansa looked back cautiously over her shoulder. It didn't seem like anyone had noticed their departure. And even if they had, a tall, warrior with burns had requested the room, the bath, the meal… not a dark haired girl in a road stained dress.

"We shouldn't… it's not right!" They had made it back to the road, the sun starting to rise behind them as the dog walked beside her and Stranger. It was pointless shouting about it really, he couldn't defend his actions, or even make a sarcastic joke about her manners and propriety. Or tell her that those manners could get her killed out here on the road. Maybe he was right. And in some ways the thought of sneaking off… it was exciting to her. She felt goosebumps rise on her arms, and it wasn't from the chill of the morning. She'd never really broken the rules before… and she'd even helped him to cheat during the card game! Septa Mordane's fondness for games of chance was the one sin she'd kept between the two of them. And Sansa had liked helping him.

She watched him run off of the road and through some scrub and short stumpy trees, finding somewhere away from her for it to happen. Last night she'd seen him change again. But this time, when she'd held his hand, it had seemed easier for him. She hated that it hurt him. He'd been hurt enough in his life not to have to go through this as well.

When he re-emerged she was ready to lecture him about not paying for their room, but it suddenly didn't seem so important. He was here, looking after her. Maybe the rules had to be broken now. In fact, as he walked towards her, she smiled at him.

"What's that for?"

"For last night… for the room. And the bath-"

He nodded briefly, not meeting her eyes. Her smile died.

"Don't get used to it… too many inns on this road with too many who might've heard word from Kings Landing". He quickly mounted Stranger, looking onwards, up the road.

"Thank you anyway."

He looked down at her then and she saw his eyes drift to her hair. It was starting again. No. Not yet. What was he looking at?

"I made your disguise." She handed up the sewn up scraps of material: a patchwork half mask and hooded cloak. He looked confused.

"I thought… entertainers. Or at least the appearance of being entertainers… We don't need to put on an actual show."

"You're fucking kidding me!"

"It's not a terrible idea-"

He stared at her then. She wondered what he was thinking. That she was a fool probably. A little girl who thought this was just an adventure. Or that she was trying to turn him into some kind of Florian, like in the story.

He grabbed them from her and stuffed them into a saddle bag.

"Aye, it's not a terrible idea." He clicked his tongue then and Stranger moved on. The bird followed him moments later, flying low by his side, before arcing up to the sky.


	7. Chapter 7

SANDOR

The first man stood boldly in the middle of the road, a crooked smile on his face as he watched him coming closer in the late evening's light. Sandor eased Stranger to a halt, the horse shying as it sensed what was about to happen. No point in missing the opportunity for a diversion from the boredom of the road he thought. The man's friends would show themselves soon and Sandor had both the higher position on Stranger's back, and the element of surprise. Surprise because he knew the kind of cunts they were… dagger men more used to picking off plump merchants. And because they had no fucking idea what he could do to them.

The bird was in a nearby tree, screaming out the three notes over and over again. Three for danger. There was no danger here though. Packs of little cunts like this, there'd be what, four of them? Five maybe? Stranger could take down three on his own.

The man in the middle of the road took out a short sword and held it ready. Sandor leant back in the saddle and considered him. Some kind of pox spread from the corner of his mouth to his ear, bubbles of black, yellow and green. And he was stick thin, hunger in his darting eyes.

"You're almost as pretty as me." Sandor laughed grimly.

"Your coin. Now."

"Where's your friends?" He took out an apple from one of the bags and bit into it.

More men emerged from the shadows of the trees. The Little Bird was going to cry herself hoarse soon if she didn't stop. He counted quickly. Seven.

"The war's been through here then."

"Fuck the war."

Sandor merely nodded and threw the apple to the ground. One of the larger ones beat back another one of the men for it.

"Who was here?" Sandor asked, not really giving a shit.

"The Young Stag…"

"Dead now."

"Aye."

Sandor pulled on Stranger's reigns and the horse reared, crushing the man's face with his hooves and beating his body down onto the ground where the iron crushed the bones in his arms and legs. But he was already beyond caring.

The other men drew swords too. He'd hoped that killing the talker would have turned them away but hunger was at their back, no matter what the fuck was in front of them. He snarled, drawing his greatsword and swinging it at the nearest man. He tried to block with his short sword but it flew out of his grasp. The returning swing took off that hand and part of his skull. He went down, replaced by three who edged around Stranger, rightly wary. But one of them was stupid enough to get behind the destrier, and then there were only two to worry about.

The rest of the men tried to rush the horse and drag him from his back, but he kicked out at them, getting the range to sweep the sword around at their falling bodies. Another snuck in past his sword and grabbed him by his dark studded armour and tried to pull him down by that. A gloved fist to his face smashed his nose and stunned him long enough for Sandor to grab his neck and squeeze the life out of him. He let the body drop to the road like a stone.

He roared, looking for the next to impale with his sword, but the few that were left dragged their companions and melted back into the words. It was only then that he noticed that the bird was silent.

She wasn't in the tree any more. He scanned the sky above the trees, holding a blood splashed gauntlet over his eyes to block out the sun. He saw a dark spot in the distance, it could have been her but he wasn't sure.

He urged Stranger on down the road and into a gallop.

***

She re-joined him as the road crested a hill, where he could see it winding all the way to Highgarden on the horizon. She flew down to a nearby tree stump and settled her wings.

The castle's high tiered walls shone even in the setting light of the sun. It was still a great ways off, but already he knew the… discussion… that they were going to have to have about it. He could already imagine her blue eyes drinking in the pennants and turrets and deciding that they simply had to visit the castle, or take in the markets and inns in its outer walls. And she would pout and sulk when he said no.

But she would have to listen to him. It was just too fucking dangerous. If the Lannisters had sent out ravens to the obvious places then Highgarden would be on alert for them. And even if not, there were still plenty of floppy haired knights in that castle who'd seen him at tourneys or court as Joffrey's shadow. Of course, the fucking knights would be a part of the appeal for her…

"We need to avoid Highgarden" She said quietly, hoarsely.

He looked down at her. Silently she had changed as the sun had set and now she stood in the waning light beside Stranger. In the reddish glow she seemed covered in blood. He remembered that he still was and shifted in his saddle.

"It's too dangerous." She seemed sad but resigned.

"I thought you'd want to see the flowers of Highgarden in their armour… you liked the Knight of Flowers well enough-"

She looked up at him at that, and he regretted the bitterness in his voice. But there was certainty in hers when she spoke again.

"I want to travel around Highgarden. I don't want anyone to recognise you." She looked again at the fancy castle, where he knew there were gardens, knights and bards enough to make a young girl think she was in one of the seven heavens. Bloody hell, what else could he do?

"We'll go."

Her mouth opened slightly in surprise. "But…"

"I have yer disguise. And at night even my… mother… wouldn't recognise me anyways." He swallowed that thought down.

"You don't have to come with me. I can simply fly there during the day…"

"And get tempted down by some skinny minstrel singing love songs and be caught for some lady's pet songbird? Not bloody likely. You go, we go."

She looked him straight in the eyes then. And he looked away, awkward at being reflected in those Tully eyes.

"Besides… I could do with a decent fight anyways. Those shits on the road only whetted my appetite…"

***

SANSA

Five days later and they were at the gates of Highgarden. It had seemed so close when she'd first seen it on the horizon, but the distance had fooled her. She itched to get there, and as a bird she flew as close as she could before the boundary pushed against her and she returned to his shoulder to rest. As they had gotten closer he had reluctantly started to wear the hood and the cloak, leaving the half mask for now. He hated the motley colours and moaned about being mistaken for Ser Dontos, now a fool capering in Joffrey's court after Sansa had insisted he be allowed to wear the patchwork instead of being drowned. But no one would mistake the Hound for Dontos Hollard. For a start he and Stranger were imposingly large figures, in Sansa's disguise he looked more disturbing than jolly. She hoped that would put anyone off from looking too closely into the shadows of the red, purple and green hood.

The guards at the gate were bored, allowing carts and traders in without much consideration, but when they saw the motley'd warrior on the large horse that had ribbons woven into its mane – the Hound had sworn blue murder about that too – their attention was drawn and they stopped him.

"Business in Highgarden?"

She watched his eyes closely. From her perch she could see if they narrowed in rage or not. A false move here would be disastrous. But he seemed calm.

"Entertainment."

"Aye. Do ye dance with all those pretty ribbons?!" The other guard laughed with the joker. The Hound smiled grimly and gestured to her on his cloaked shoulder.

"No, it's this bird here. Songbird from the Summer Isles. Trained special like."

"Fuck me… that little thing? Bloody ordinary looking ain't it? I thought they were meant to be pretty, those birds."

Still the Hound kept his fake smile.

"Aye, this little thing. Entertainment for the ladies of court."

"Show us then."

Before the Hound could respond Sansa launched into a complicated, repeating song that soared and dipped. The guards' spears dipped as they were surprised by the sound.

"Now that's something. Doubt such as us'll get to hear that again once the court gets a hold of you. The Ivy will probably try to buy your bird with the cripple's money… Pass then."

They stood back to attention to let the rider and his bird pass through the great gates.

On the other side he dismounted with her still balancing on his pauldron. The first ring of the tiered castle's ground was a maelstrom of merchants, peddlers, craftsman and customers. Sansa tried to take everything in at once and failed. It was not Kings Landing, not having its size by any means, but it was so light and full of colours compared to her memories of that dark place.

There were too many colours, smells and sounds. The people of Highgarden were a mix of willowy women in pastel colours with flowers in their hair, and men in elegantly cut jerkins, wearing light decorative swords at their waists. They chatted and flirted around market stalls while playing with jewellery from across the sea that sat beside orchids and silk scarves. A fiddler walked amongst the crowds drawing a light dancing sound from his instrument. He played for this lady, then this one, then another.

Sansa wanted to land and become a woman again to take part in the life of this place. But she couldn't, not for hours yet. And the tension she felt in the Hound's shoulders suggested he felt differently. Then she saw a stall covered in gilded cages, each one containing a brightly plumed bird, and she made herself smaller on his shoulder, moving closer to his hair and his ear.

"Gently bird, gentle. No cages for you." He whispered to reassure her, but she was so tempted just to fly away. Had this been a mistake? After the fight on the road she had been prepared to avoid any danger, however tempting Highgarden had been. The Hound would never admit that he had been at any risk, but even now she could close her eyes and see him in her mind's eye dragged from Stranger's back and stabbed in his throat, his chest, his stomach… Highgarden was just a dream. The blood on his gauntlets was the reality.

But now they were here… it would not hurt she supposed to see the gardens, the fountains, the colonnades she'd heard tell of. She was so wrapped up in the idea she did not see Sandor make a few quick purchases at the stalls as they passed.

***

The small room in the inn he found them overlooked a market square, and Sansa flew through that window to join Sandor once he'd opened it for her. She landed on the cushioned window seat as the smoke started to swirl around her. As soon as she was changed she knelt up to peer out of the window, still drinking in the life of Highgarden below.

She turned back to Sandor who stood in the dark of the room and babbled, excitement overflowing. "Thank you, thank you… I know it's dangerous-"

She saw then that he was holding some things out to her and she left the seat to walk quietly and quickly to him. She took the bottle from his hand.

"More of that dye stuff. Expensive though. Got you this as well." He held out a comb carved out what looked like antler. "So you don't have to use yer fingers any more…"

At Kings Landing she'd had a silver hair brush, its back inlaid with mother of pearl. It had been a gift from Queen Cersei when they'd arrived, but she doubted that the Queen had ever seen it, arriving as it did in the hands of a bowing servant. She didn't regret the loss of that gift at all. She gently took the comb from his large hand where it sat looking like a doll's one. It was roughly carved, ugly even, but it would get rid of the knots in her hair. She smiled up at him then, clasping the comb tightly.

"Thank you. That's so thoughtful." She reached to touch his upper arm and was surprised as he moved away.

"It's just a comb." He said dismissively, gruffly.

She swept back to the window seat, already starting to work the comb through her jagged hair, and looked back out over the stones of Highgarden as the sun set. She heard him settle himself on the large bed and the sound of him stretching and twisting to remove his armour. His change would be coming soon.

"Do you need help?"

"I can manage me own armour lass. Have done for a long time now." He was nearly done, placing his greaves on the floor with the rest of the rust spotted and dented metal and leather.

She came back over to him, sitting by his side on the rickety bed that creaked as they moved on it. She placed the comb down and took his hand in both of hers before he hand a chance to draw away.

"At the inn before… it seemed to ease when I held your hand."

He pulled his great calloused hand away from her. "I'm not some fucking girl who needs her hand held. Its pain. Been in pain before, will be again."

She set her mouth in a determined line and reached for his hand again. He looked furious but the tension around his eyes, and the way his other hand curled up told her it was starting. Soon he could not even speak, his face screwed up in agony. But he did not scream, he did not thrash about as he had done so many times before. And when it was done, the tired dog laid his head on her lap.

She picked up the comb, and sang as she worked it through her dark hair.

***

The dog had tried dragging her back by her skirts. He'd tried barking at her. Three barks for danger. He tried sitting still and whining. As close to begging as she thought he would get.

But her mind was set.

After his change she had looked at the big simple bed in their simple room, and wanted… more. Why risk this much and not risk a little more to see Highgarden properly? So she'd told him that she wanted to visit the gardens and then the skirt grabbing and barking had begun. Physically he was much stronger than her and his attempts to stop her should have been successful. But she remembered what he had said… about serving her will now. She put on a stern face, a Stark face, and ordered him to let her go. The dog had dropped her skirt and sat on his haunches, before following her out of the inn and keeping to her heels.

Across the market place she marched. It was dark and guards were lighting torches set into the outer walls. She was not sure where she was heading, only that she had to see everything. The gardens she imagined would put King's Landing's into the shade. And after weeks on the road she wanted so much to see something beautiful.

There was an ornate wrought iron double gate set into one of the inner walls. Sansa peered through, the dog standing guard behind here. On the other side was a gravel path, leading after a short distance to a box hedge that stood twelve feet high, almost as high as the wall that separated her from the gardens. Set into the box hedge was another iron gate, this time one decorated with gold and silver filigree flowers. From the other side of it came the most extraordinary scent, drifting on the night breeze. She tried to push open the first gate, but it was locked.

"Who goes there?" A guard in Highgarden colours was walking up the gravel path between the wall and the hedge, striding towards where Sansa had her head peeking through the gate. "The gate is locked. The Moongarden is not for…. you."

As he got closer the young guard peered at her, no doubt taking in her roughly cut hair, the ragged hem of her dress, the travel stains of mud and… was there blood on it from the Hound's armour? Oh dear gods.

"Are you hurt girl? Go to the Septas by the main gate… but this place is not for common-women."

The Hound growled then. The sound made the guard suddenly very aware of the immense beast at her side in the shadows. He raised his spear quickly.

"What in the Seven Hells is that?!"

"Is there a problem here, ser guard?" A woman's voice sounded in the darkness. It was heavily accented, although Sansa could not place it. The guard turned quickly to see the lady emerging from the gate in the hedge, surrounded by four Highgarden maids wearing pretty pinks, blues and yellows. The woman was much older than the girls. Perhaps of an age with Queen Cersei, or older. Now she looked closer Sansa thought she was perhaps somewhere between her and Sansa's mother in age. And standing so tall next to the little flowers that trailed after her she reminded Sansa of the elegant pale columns she had seen in the Great Sept. Her dress also had no frilly flourishes like the maids', but was a simple grey, white sweep of material. Warm brown hair coiled and tumbled over one shoulder. As she spoke she gestured with her hands, and Sansa saw that the fingertips of both were stained a vibrant green.

"Mi'lady." The guard bowed quickly.

The lady dipped her head to acknowledge his deference. In the half light of the flickering torches she seemed to have a stern face, her nose perhaps a little too straight, her cheekbones high and sharp. But as she drew closer to Sansa and the dog at the outer gate, her smile was warm and welcoming. Although, towards the guard she was as hard as that marble.

"I do believe that the Moongarden belongs to me, a present from Ser Willas… perhaps you should ask me who is allowed in it?" Her voice was pleasant but Sansa could feel the steel in it.

"The Lady Olenna…"

"Understands the importance of gifts to the giver I am sure. Please, let the girl and her dog in." the guard stumbles with the ring of keys on his belt and unlocked the double gate to let them in.

Sansa quickly followed after the Lady and her maids as she swept back through the hedge gate and into the Moongarden. She was amazed to see that the garden was full of flowers just opening their petals, the delicate scent she had first encounter at the gate was getting stronger as the flowers woke up in the moonlight.

"Stunning are they not?" The Lady smiled at the flowers. "They only bloom at night. They are all very rare breeds. Some from Lys, some from near my own home of Braavos. Some bear fruit that is as deadly as those places too."

"Thank you mi'lady…"

"I met a woman once. A little stern. Fiercely proud of her children. Such blue eyes. You remind me a little of her. Of course she had memorable red hair. Whereas you seem to only have the red peeking through at the roots…"

Sansa's hand flew to her hair, and the Hound snarled, making the girls shriek and flap.

"Shush now. It is not so obvious. Only another woman who has experience of such things would even notice. What a loyal hound."

The lady bowed a little. "Allow me to introduce myself. I am Iveia of Braavos. Also known here as The Ivy."

"A guard mentioned you at the main gates…"

She laughed lightly then. "Oh yes, unfavourably I would imagine. Ivy is a parasite, climbing up stronger plants and trees. Choking them. As I climb up the House Tyrell, so they say." She spread out her hands, displaying the dyed green fingertips. "But sometimes it is good if your enemies use a name to slur you with. Then you will know who your enemies are."

They reached a structure in the middle of the Moongarden, a wooden pagoda filled with cushions and blankets. The Ivy's maids curled up upon them quickly, sighing and yawning. Iveia sat by one of them and gently stroked her fair hair as she rested her head.

"I do not sleep well. So Ser Willas made me the Moongarden for those late hours when I need to walk. To keep me safe as I pace. But my dear little friends do so love their sleep."

"Who are they?"

"Foundlings, little one, much like you. Some are bastards, some are girls from whore houses who found their way under my protection." She looked then at the dog. "But I do not think you will need to stay here under my protection."

"We are heading to Oldtow-"

She held up a hand to quieten her.

"There is another you should speak to when he is back from his hunting." She gestured, beckoning Sansa to lie down amongst the entwined flowermaids. "For now, rest. Sleep, and dream of better days, Sansa".

Sansa started at the mention of her name, and the Hound put his ears back, his fur bristling. "You mistake me, mi'lady. I am Jeyne Hill."

"Yes girl… sleep now. Lie tomorrow, if you must."

***

SANDOR

In the stillness of the Moongarden he slept on until it was too late. He awoke, his head on his paws at her feet, to feel the first of the sparks running up and down his spine. The dog tried to run but he skidded on the gravel of the garden as the change took his body and wracked it. Lying on his side, rib cage heaving for air, the dog thrashed his legs against the small sharp stones, running still even if his body could not. Then it was done and he looked anxiously back to the pagoda through tangled hair, on his hands and knees in the dirt. Sansa and the maids slept on, his fucking cries had been in his head alone.

A polite cough interrupted his relief. He looked up to where The Ivy stood over him. She arched an eyebrow, boldly looking at his nakedness before unravelling a silk… thing… from her shoulders and passing it down to him. He quickly stood and tied it around his waist, nodding a gruff thank you.

"I take it that you are the girl's guardian?"

"Aye…" She started to walk and the Hound followed after, not knowing what else to do being dressed only in her silks.

"You don't seem very fucking surprised… seeing me change like that."

Her body stiffened a little at his cursing, but she did not comment on it.

"I come from Braavos where I once saw a man change his face. If that can be so, then why not a man who changes his entire body…?"

"It's not… I don't bloody choose to!"

"No, I thought not. The pain was clear."

They reached elaborately carved wooden doors, slatted to let in the air but to keep out the sun and she led him inside the large dark rooms where a stately bed covered in embroidered silk stood, unslept in. Going to an inner door she whispered for a moment to some man in the shadows, a servant most like, who bowed and scurried down the corridor on her errand.

The Ivy turned then and considered him. He stood straight and defiant under her gaze, as penetrating as it was.

"A man who is a dog. A dog who is a man. Both with burns…"

"Aye…"

"I believe I know you, man who is a dog… or know of you at least. And I would call you ser, but I think that that would not be the truth of things-"

Suddenly Sansa pushed in through the slatted doors, followed after by the maids who were flapping and worrying after her. "I could not… I could not find you!"

"I am well…"

She went to him, noticing his near nakedness for the first time. And then she looked away. Of course she bloody did…

"I will send servants to your quarters for your clothes, and belongings." Iveia was talking but he was looking at the little bird. Her hair was still a mess from the night and her pretty face had a crease on one side from the blankets of her garden bed.

"Thank you my lady." He was jolted back to the room. Sansa was better at these bloody courtesies than he was, and her thanks nudged him to thank the woman also. The Ivy acknowledged his thanks with what looked like a smirk.

"I'll call for breakfast shall I?" The Ivy moved to the inner door and her servants again. "We can eat on the veranda…"

The Hound looked down at Sansa. It was starting but she hadn't noticed, her wide eyes still taking in the luxuries in Iveia's rooms. The maids were giggling behind their hands, probably at him, and didn't see the smoke either. "Sa- Jeyne…" his harsh voice alone was a warning.

She looked up at him, realising suddenly, eyes widening. But then she reached for his hand just as her own started to drift away and she could not touch him anymore. "Tell her the truth. I trust her…"

"You trust too bloody easily, little bird…"

She smiled too, before that fell into smoke as well.

And then the bird was flying around the room, circling around the maids who shrieked in shock and fear. The Ivy watched the spectacle dispassionately.

"Perhaps little ones, you should leave us for now…" The maids curtsied, and fled from the room quickly, gossiping amongst themselves. The bird finally landed on one of the carved wooden pillars that grew almost organically from a great four poster bed in the centre of the large room.

"I see. I think you have quite the story to tell me this morning."

***

The Ivy listened silently as he forced the story out. His version was brief, just the main things that had happened to them, he was no fucking bard or storyteller. His journey with the little bird had shown him that he could tell his stories. But that was to Sansa, not this Braavosi wh- courtesan. He'd slipped once and almost used that word with her and the ice in her eyes then let him know that this was not the kind of woman he was used to in the whore houses of Kings Landing. She had a mind, that was clear. And influence too, might be.

After his story was done, she steepled her fingers and touched them to her lips as she thought. They were in her gardens, the flowers had closed their pretty faces for the day, but the maids were racing around playing loud games that involved lots of laughter and sometimes kissing. Sandor was finding them a distraction and he tried not to watch them too obviously.

At least he wore his own comfortable clothes again. The Ivy had at first had a servant bring him some large guard's clothes, but the flowery get up had scratched and annoyed him. Eventually another brought him their gear from the inn and he relaxed into his old shirt and breeches. In his old clothes, a glass of wine in his hand, the sun on him, he could almost relax. Until the next giggle interrupted the quiet.

"I am not sure I can help you."

The Hound drank deeply, resigned already. "Aye."

"You might be right about Oldtown. The maesters there have an archive that may contain knowledge of such curses… But there is nothing here of that kind. Although… if anyone would know it would be Ser Willas. And he returns soon from the hunt."

The little bird had flown off to explore the gardens and he missed her. There were too many bloody silences with this woman, and he couldn't fill them. Her eyes seemed to see everything, and he felt out of his depth. He knew swords and fighting, not words and double meanings…

"You should know… the Lannisters have approached Willas' father about a match."

He looked blank.

"A wedding… between his sister Margaery, and Joffrey. He will end the engagement to Sansa publically…"

"How's he going to bloody do that when she's with me?!"

"According to… friends I have in court, she's not with you. She's ill in the Red Keep still." The Ivy paused. "There is indeed a young girl being kept in the Keep. And I fear that they will use her to keep their grip on her claim to the North. I imagine that they will marry her to Tyrion Lannister."

"Then I am fucking sorry for the girl…"

"Be sorry for your girl. If her double marries and stakes her claim on the North, with the help of the Lannisters, at any point… then your bird will never be able to return home."

***

He found her by a fountain in the garden just as the sun was starting to disappear behind the castle's walls. The bird was dipping herself into the water and shaking it back along her feathers under the gaze of the marble lovers and unicorns decorating the fountain. He looked away from some of the things that they were getting up to, and thought to distract her eyes from them too after she changed. He took a seat at the water's edge, listening to the bird singing and waiting for her change.

After it was done she sat beside him on the fountain's edge and examined her dress.

"It did not work." She looked confused.

"What?"

"Bathing as a bird. My dress is still as dirty…"

"Yer hair didn't change your feathers neither."

She reached a hand to her dyed hair then, pushing it back behind her ear again. "Oh yes, that's true too." She sighed and trailed her hands in the water. He watched her eyes to see where she was looking, but if she noticed the lovers' antics she didn't show it.

"Joffrey's to marry the Tyrell girl." He'd meant to lead into the news, but he stabbed the words out instead.

"Oh. Oh, is that so…" He couldn't make out if she was relieved or disappointed. Once, she would have been queen. Before he'd taken her away from Kings Landing. But then, she would also have been married to that little shit.

"Poor her." Sansa looked up then and now he could see the concern in her eyes. Concern for a girl she'd never met, might never meet. "I hope she's more skilled in courtly matters, and husbands like him, than I was…"

He gruffly acknowledged the comment, but was secretly… glad. She didn't seem upset.

"There's more. The Lannisters have a false Sansa. They'll wed her to the bloody imp most like, try to make a claim on the North through her."

Sansa frowned then and he leant forward suddenly, urgently. "We should head North after all. Get to your brother. Assert your claim now!"

She paused, and he could see her thinking it all through. "No. No, we can't."

"But…"

"I have no real claim on the North. My sons will. And that's all the help I can give my brother, marrying one of his bannermen or a son of another large house in the South. And I can't seal that marriage with children. Not now. Not like this." She smiled a rueful smile then. "What will I do…? Lay him some eggs?"

She stood then, brushing down her skirts and making the best of her tattered and dirty travel dress.

"No, we continue to Oldtown. Once we have met with Willas…. But we'll leave if he can't help us."

He thought for a moment that the pain was the change starting. But this was different, and it was only when he thought over his words as he followed her that he realised what it was he was reacting to. She would marry. She would marry for her brother's sake. And she would bear children to some northern lord.

When the change did come moments later he was glad of it. Dogs didn't give a shit about fucking weddings, alliances and claims. And he ran off across the gardens, a dark shadow racing under the emerging moon.

***

SANSA

The baths were…. heavenly. Sansa leant back against the marble walls and for the first time in a long time, just breathed. She was surrounded by the splashing and giggling of Iveia's maids, but they echoed to her as though down a long tunnel. Everything, every concern, every worry, disappeared until all there was left was the feel of hot bubbling water against her skin. Her hair was plastered against her head, newly dyed in a tone that Iveia thought was a little more suited to her. Brown, but not as dark, warmer in colour she said. The Lady had frowned at her hair when she had finally had a chance to examine it properly. "Whoever did this to your hair," she had said archly, "Tell me their name and I will send a thousand ravens to warn all the ladies of the seven kingdoms."

Sansa smiled as she remembered the feeling of the maid cutting her hair and running the new dye through it. That was when Iveia's efforts to turn the travelling waif into a lady again had really begun. Then there had been the maid who had dug the dirt from under her nails, and dyed them a purple as Iveia's were green. Then there was the dressmaker who had measured her and whispered with Iveia about gowns and shifts and… small clothes. And finally she had followed the Lady and her maids, as meek as a lamb, down to these baths were they had all stripped off their fine silks and sunk into the water together.

She was not a prude… well, maybe a little bit of one. But when she'd found her eyes drifting to the maids, to Iveia, she had blushed hotly. But it was curiosity only.

Iveia, although much older than the maids and Sansa, was still, as far as Sansa could see through the steam, lithe and firm. The only marks to her age were the laughter lines on her face and the grey hair that, she admitted to Sansa, she had to kill every new moon or face it in the mirror again. There was however a curious scar across the older woman's belly, marking her from left to right. Sansa did not stare though. In fact, she studiously looked away every time one of the maids jumped from the water or reached out for more bath salts.

Iveia noted her discomfort, and wryly smiled.

"You have not bathed much… with other women?"

"Just my family my lady. And it was never so… amusing…" One of the maids was trying to get up onto the shoulders of another, and failing, falling again and again into the water.

"Forgive them, they are very young. And they did not grow up with luxuries like this. Nor did I, at that."

"Your family were not nobles?"

"No little one." She drew closer and took a pearl handled comb to hand to run through Sansa's hair again, bringing out the dye. "But they recognised from my youth that I could have more than they could give me and apprenticed me to a woman who knew much more about men than I…"

Sansa blushed again.

"Ah, sweet child. If you could do that on request, you would have made a great courtesan."

"Were you a great… courtesan…?"

"For a little while… while my star was in the ascendant poets wrote flamboyant verses about me. But then the crone knocked at my door, and I realised that I could be a small little fishy in a great pond, or sail away to where I was more… unique."

Iveia looked at her closely then, and she felt uncomfortable.

"Do you know about what happens when a man lies with a woman, Sansa?"

She stuttered, trying to form words.

"You were engaged were you not? Perhaps you know a little of what men want. And what to do for them?"

"I never… I never have."

Iveia laughed, but not cruelly. "That much is obvious. Your guardian… do you know what he wants?"

She wanted to sink beneath the water and disappear. She was glad that the dog had gotten bored of watching her primped and preened and had wandered off into the gardens alone.

"He has never… he would never…."

"He would. All men would. The only difference between them is that some will ask gently you, sweetly, for it. And some will take it. Your guardian… if he has not asked yet, nor taken yet… then he will someday."

Iveia looked sad then, and Sansa wondered what had happened to her to make her in the past to make her seem to sorrowful now.

"This world, the Seven kingdoms and the lands beyond, they cannot be ruled by love. If every match was made by those who loved… chaos would drown us all. Remember this as you become a woman Sansa."

She brighten suddenly and smiled, putting down the comb. "Now, shall we dry ourselves and dress? Ser Willas will be returning this night, and after his bath I am sure that he will want to greet you. Once you are in all your new splendour of course".

But Sansa wondered, as she nodded briefly to the lady, why did The Ivy's normally warm smile seem false this first time?

***

SANDOR

He was becoming angry. On her behalf this time.

Since she had re-emerged from The Ivy's apartments wearing that Highgarden get up she'd been sitting on the veranda with the courtesan, daintily eating small dishes, drinking watered wine, and trying not to destroy all the work they had put into turning her back into a lady. Even though they'd dressed her back in silks and satins, and cleverly painted her face so she looked like she wasn't even wearing make-up. Even though her hair was tidier… and was that a different colour? Even given all that… effort, he didn't bloody like it. At least the Highgarden style had been modified to suit her more northern roots. The front of the dress was covered up rather than showing her teats like some prize cow. Though the back of the gown was cut as low as the ones worn by the pretty maids. In the moonlight her skin glowed there. Though he could see that it was getting harder for her to remain seated correctly, her back rigid against the seat like a proper bloody lady, as the hours crept on.

It wasn't right, keeping her up like this when she was stifling yawns behind a small hand. All to meet some lord of Highgarden. What was The Ivy playing at?

The dog sat rock still at her feet, blocking out the sound of pleasentries that passed between the girl and the Lady. Some of the maids had begged pardon already and taken to their garden bed, but Sansa stayed, never complaining, never fidgeting.

Suddenly he caught a scent on the wind and stood up. Dog. Other dogs. And a man. An unwashed man smelling of the rolling hills outside the castle. This must be Ser Willas back from his hunt. About fucking time.

He emerged from the shadows of the garden, hunting dogs bounding around his feet. The cripple walked with a stick, but he was young still. He had dark hair and a smartly cropped beard. His clothes were travelled stained but rich, and Sandor took no more note of him. Another lordling, like the rest. The dogs drew nearer to the table on the veranda before they noticed the much larger mastiff standing there. As one they yelped and dashed away.

Willas turned his attention briefly to the Hound, raising an eyebrow, but then Iveia swept over to him, and clasped his hands in greeting. He smiled and raised hers to his lips. "My Lady."

The Hound wasn't sure he'd seen a look like that between a man and a woman. Not that he could recall. Perhaps at Winterfell when he'd seen Eddard look at his wife, but he'd not taken much note of them. Sansa seemed moonstruck, looking at the two of them together. There you are girl, he thought almost viciously, there's your fairy tale. But I tell you, there's no happy ending for the courtesan and the cripple.

"My Lord. Might I introduce…. Jeyne Hill." Sansa rose and curtsied to his confused face.

"Another foundling, my dear?"

"Of a sort… might we take a turn around the garden my Lord?"

Willas took her hand then and they walked together under the shadows of the trees. No doubt the courtesan was telling him the story of a bird and a hound… about a curse. A curse of smoke and fire that ever repeated as day follows night. He would have bloody loved to listen into that conversation! Sansa waited patiently, her hand drifting down to rest on his back.

As the couple returned from their walk, Willas approached Sansa and offered his hand to her, helping her from her seat.

"My Lady. Will you walk with me now?"

What was this? A bloody game of Come-Into-My-Castle? He padded after them, noting that Willas had drawn her arm into his.

"Iveia has confided in me… totally. And although I must say that your tale is extraordinary, other changes in the Seven Kingdoms lead me to believe her. Rumours of things beyond the wall, and dragons over the sea… Those, and the fact that she would not lie to me."

Sansa nodded, struck mute in his bloody presence most like.

"I must say…. You are more fair than the pictures I have seen. Though your hair was not always that colour I think."

"Pictures, ser?"

"There was a time…. before King Robert claimed you for Joffrey… that my father thought of an alliance between our houses. He sent a man to paint your likeness at Winterfell. Secretly of course… I believe I still have it somewhere in my study. You were very young, and I was interested in other… things. After that I was inundated with pictures passed via my father of all the pretty girls of the kingdoms…"

The Hound held in the growls building in his throat. Not just another lordling. This one had his own game to play. Aided by The Ivy. No wonder she had spent so much time painting and dressing Sansa…

"You have my word Lady Sansa, you are safe here. My sister is to be wed to Joffrey… I hope that does not hurt you?"

"No my lord… I hope it is a happy match."

He nodded then, with a serious face. "The Tyrells and the royal house will be tied together… they will grow together with Margaery's sons. But perhaps… Our houses might also be tied together, to heal any rifts between the North and the crown, through Highgarden."

He stopped and took her hands in his then, as he had with The Ivy.

"I can send for maesters, healers… magicians from across the sea. You could remain here in secret until the curse is broken. And then… we might have a wedding."

Sansa looked in shock. The Hound yearned to dig his teeth into this little shit's leg. What of The Ivy? Or was the courtesan to share their fucking marriage bed?!

"Iveia…?"

"We cannot wed. And she cannot give me children… I know you do not know me, but I could be a good husband to you. And in time we might love each other. As our parents learnt to in their own arranged marriages…"

Sansa pulled away from his hands then. "And if the curse cannot be lifted?"

"You can stay here… as Jeyne Hill… for as many years as you wish."

He saw her then, in his mind's eye. An older Sansa, grey at her temples, young maids around her, the children she would never have, endlessly walking the paths of the Moongarden as The Ivy did before her. And was there a greying dog at her side? Dogs did not live as long as men. Or would he roam outside the castle, as far apart from Sansa as he could get, rather than see her forever waiting…

"My Lord… your offer is generous. I am a fugitive from court. My father was branded traitor and executed. There is shame on my family. You could have turned me out. I thank you for that. Perhaps one day a union between mine house and yours, for my brother's sake, would be advantageous. But I cannot wait here for a cure. My guardian and I will leave on the morning."

Willas looked down at the Hound then, the moon reflecting off of the beast's teeth.

"As you wish my lady. At least let me supply you with an honour guard on your way to Oldtown."

"Thank you, but no. I have all the protection I need in my guardian. Two travelling alone will be less noted than an entourage."

They walked on then, silent before the whelp piped up again.

"If you do not find what you seek in Oldtown, there is a healer you might look for. He came when I had my accident. They thought to take the leg off, but he saved it. He is the leader of a small refuge of monks of the Seven near the Saltpans… If you can find your way there, perhaps he might help you. Although, I fear your malady is not of the body."

"Thank you my lord." They walked in silence again then and the Hound cursed the lordling and his bitch again for keeping her up so late. She was obviously exhausted to silence…

"So… your hound. Magnificent beast, excellent form. Have you thought of breeding from him…" He smiled broadly then, making the joke clear.

She laughed then, a light joyous sound, the first laugh in a long time. And he partially forgave the cunt.


	8. Chapter 8

KAI

He sat on a tree stump watching the last walls of the inn tumble down. The fire was a dying beast now but the rough bricks of the Rose in Bloom had held their strength longer than he thought they would. The glow from the ruin lit him as he sat under the trees, his arms covered in blood from fingertip to elbow. The evening had not gone as he'd planned.

He really only wanted to rest and to change horses, before taking off again down the Rose Road towards Highgarden. His last horse was done in, blood caked its side from his spurs, and the creature had a defeated and dejected look to it now, mane and tail soaked by sweat, and by mud from the road. The Rose in Bloom had looked inviting, so he'd taken up a seat by the fire, from which he had the widest view of the common room possible. Fat traders almost to a one. No sign of the man and the girl. Or a dog. Or a bird.

He'd politely probed the innkeeper about travellers on the road… had there been any problems lately? Were there dark figures riding the road, making it deadlier than usual? The keep had whined about the war, the effect on business… how some customers left without paying, even though he kept a guard out, watching for attempts to flee. Yes, one of them had been a scarred man, yes, burns… was Kai looking for him? He shrugged, tipped heavily and turned back to his supper. But by then he hadn't really needed to ask. The taint of the curse was here, he could taste it like blood on his tongue once he entered the building. They'd changed here at some point. Good, he was on the right track still and could relax.

And then the giant had entered the inn with his men, bringing with him swirling leaves and the rain.

Kai was rarely impressed by warriors. His skills were a little more… subtle… and he did not rate the knights of the kingdoms who swung broadswords and morningstars at thick metal armour over and over again with brute force and little finesse. But even he was taken by the size of the giant. One such as that might serve…

It started with a stumbling maid being drawn into one of the men's lap. When she cried out at the ill treatment he gave her, crushing her breast and fondling her parts, the innkeeper's guard had tried to step in. He died quickly, followed by the innkeeper… his head twisted near off by the giant's huge hands. Kai had continued to sup his ale as the fight spread.

Then one of the giant's men had rabidly charged him. He was in the room, so he was fair game once their blood was up. The patrons' blood was however all over the floor by then. But still Kai had not moved. So the man, a thin jittering fair haired thing, came at him with a shortsword, which Kai ducked around before jabbing a stiletto blade into his armpit. After the others saw that, he had more to dispatch, until his arms were red and slick.

Now, sitting on the tree trunk and watching the inn collapse, he could not remember how many he had killed. He thought that maybe he had been the one who started the fire though, taking a burning log in his bare hands and smashing it into the face of one of them… he regretted that. That had not been subtle.

The giant walked towards him then, a darker shadow in the dying firelight. "You killed my men."

"Not all of them it seems." There were others moving in the darkness behind him, cautious of him now.

"Could use a man like you."

"Is that so?"

The giant's voice boomed into the stillness of the road. Somewhere, off to his right, a woman was sobbing.

"What business are you in?"

"Collecting a man for a bounty…. A man and a girl. Easy job. There's coin in it for you."

Let him think you're simple. Let him think it's about the coin. His voice in his own head always sounded just like Ektor's. And the advice was always good. "Then you've got yourself a deal!" He leapt up to offer his hand and arm to seal the pact. The giant grasped it, not caring about the blood, trying to crush Kai's arm as he did. Kai mock winced and laughed like a mindless fool. "Careful, that's my drinking arm!"

The giant grunted and walked away and the others drew closer to inspect their new fellow. "You serve the Mountain now boy." Lisped one of them, "Ser Gregor Clegane."

And now the Mountain serves me, Kai thought, closing the hand that the giant had clasped, closing it around a small, smooth stone that had not been there before.

***

SANSA

They left early, before the sun had risen, before his change. Sansa insisted, even though she had slept so little the night before. She dressed in her new travel dress and cloak and led Stranger out of a quiet gate that led to the tourney grounds rather than the roads. The dog padded behind her, paws wet from morning dew.

Iveia had begged her to stay. The maids had wept and wailed. But she thought she saw understanding in Willas' eyes. Maybe one day she would return to him and his proposal. But Highgarden's gleaming walls and sweet smelling gardens were as much a gilded cage as Kings Landing had been. On the road she felt… free.

The tourney grounds were silent in the early morning, the posts and poles forming the jousting divider were watched by empty stands, house pennants hanging limply in the slight breeze. She'd seen men joust of course. She'd seen the Hound save the Knight of Flowers from his own brother, the Mountain, Ser Gregor. It seemed like an age ago. She'd been so excited to see Ser Loras Tyrell on the field, dreaming of being crowned his queen of love and beauty. She never could have imagined then that later she'd be creeping out of Highgarden in the still of the morning, leaving behind Loras' brother and everything she thought she wanted.

She waited as the dog ran to the stands, disappearing under them. She started to untie his armour from Stranger's back, leaving his clothes a discarded chair, setting it upright behind her so he could pick them up for himself. Somehow this handover of clothes had become something they did not need to talk about or plan in advance.

"Thanks girl." She had not heard him approach, but she remained with her back to him as he dressed quickly in his old clothes. He had refused to take gifts from Highgarden, even a shining new suit of armour… though not, she noted archly, the supplies of food and… wine.

"To Oldtown then… are you sure?" He asked from behind her and she finally turned then, to look at straight at him.

"You could stay and wed the lordling…?"

"It seems I prefer the road to Highgarden."

"This curse has addled your mind girl. Soft beds, soft silks… soft headed knights. You'd leave that?" His face was serious as he looked down at her, his dark eyes betraying nothing.

"Perhaps then it's because I prefer your company to that of soft headed knights."

He laughed then, a deep booming laugh in the stillness of the tourney grounds. "It's not as though you would have been rid of me, little bird!"

"It is not just the curse that keeps me with you. Iveia called you my guardian, and she was right."

"Don't you even think about knighting me, my lady!"

She laughed then, and looked around the flat grass of the grounds. "Maybe I'll name you my king of love and beauty instead."

"Aye lass? And who will you fight and defeat to win that honour for me?"

"Anyone… everyone…" She looked fierce then for a moment, before blushing deeply. She'd not meant to say that. She'd not meant to be so light with him. Perhaps the maids' giggling and flirting had rubbed off on her.

"I do believe you would little bird." He was quiet, gentle. It was a side of him she did not see often, and she liked it.

His hand reached for her then, and she thought he was going to touch her cheek. But his hand moved to her hair, where she saw the smoke was beginning to twine itself with her.

"Time to fly. Perhaps those you fight will be afeared of birds…."

And then she took off into the air, singing as she flew.

***

SANDOR

At first he did not realise what the dark shape was, falling to the ground out of the blue of the sky. It crashed onto the sharp stones of the southern road and fluttered and jittered on the ground there, feathers spinning away from it. Brown and red feathers.

He spurred Stranger on to where it landed, leapt from his back and crouched quickly at the bird's side, brushing away feathers to see her properly, his heart in his throat. The bird was breathing at least, but great score marks had pushed through the feathers of her chest, bloody wounds staining her golden brown feathers a vicious red. And as he lifted her gently in his large hand one wing hung useless, falling limply between his forefinger and thumb.

"Fuck the gods!"

What could he do? What the hell could he do?

He gently lifted the broken wing and folded it carefully back against her before ripping a length of the cloth from his tunic and wrapping it around her to hold the wing still and to cover the weeping wounds. Then he mounted Stranger while holding the bird close to his chest, reassured by the trembling feel of her in his palm. He wanted to spur the horse into a gallop, to find someone, anyone, who could help. But he was terrified of crushing her as he rode. Stranger began to walk forward, onwards down the road.

"Hold on, little bird, hold on."

***

He thanked the same gods he'd cursed earlier when he saw the simple inn at the side of the road. The bird's heart was still beating weakly against his calloused hand. He got down from the horse and carefully lay her, still swaddled in parts of his shirt, on the saddle while he got the costume she had made him out from the saddle bags. He threw on the cloak and hood, and after a moment's thought, even put on the patchwork half mask that covered his scars.

He burst into the darkness of the inn. Outside a palfrey and four geldings had been tied up to stakes and left with water and feed. There were people here, people who might be able to help. Faces turned to look at him as he came in, and he saw their confusion as they took in the sight of the large man in a mummer's motley, carrying a small bundle in his hands.

"Help. Help please!"

A tall, snow haired lord in velvet rose from his chair with four guardsmen. They wore a sigil on their breasts he did not immediately recognise, a lily on a field of green. Flowers, more bloody flowers. Sworn to Highgarden then.

The elder man spoke first. A lord, even here in this small inn on the road.

"What ails you man?"

He took a breath. He had no skill in lying, but he hoped Sansa's disguise might help as she had hoped.

"My bird… my livelihood."

"What… what say you? Speak up."

He saw then that the lord's right arm was gone, the empty sleeve of his tunic pinned up and useless.

"I'm an entertainer. The bird it sings… she's been attacked. Most like by some bigger bird…"

"A sad story man… but no bloody maesters here. Not that I know of any that fix birds. Bury it and be sad. Then move on…"

The Hound's hand fell to the dagger at his waist then, and the older man frowned to see it. The guards' hands darted to their swords, but no one moved.

"Don't be fucking soft man, it's just a bloody bird!"

"Donal…" the woman's voice was gentle, but a cautionary tone was in it none the less. Sandor saw her then, a small woman in her forties, younger than her husband but dressed in the same velvets and colours. He towered over her and shadowed her so well, he had not noticed the brown haired lady at first.

"My sweet… there's nothing to be done for the bird. Don't let's get involved…"

"I fixed a broken wing once… when I was a child. And I have nursed chicks from the egg. And I have watched Alin with the hawks…"

She stood, this gently spoken lady, and moved quickly to his side, peering into his hands at the little bird.

"Oh! The poor thing! She is very small… she may not survive this, even if I can help her. The shock may do for her heart."

"She's not like other birds my lady… she's from the Summer Isles. A song like none you've ever heard. And she's hardy…"

"And she's more than your livelihood, I think. Donal, bring me my sewing kit from the packs…"

Donal went to complain, but threw up his hands and marched from the inn.

"Ignore him. He knows I'll get my way eventually. I always do." She looked up at him and smiled, creasing up the bright green eyes in her round face. She took the bird from him and set her on a near clean table, shushing the innkeeper who came over to suggest she not bother herself with this traveller.

"You may call me Lady Cara… My husband, the grumpy old man with the arm missing is Donal Vallen. We're of a small holding sworn to House Tyrell, but in these parts that's not surprising. We have two sons and two daughters, and he still thinks after four births I am a weak foolish woman in need of defending."

"That aint so Cara…" He huffed as he brought in a small ladies' case and set it on the table by the bird. "You've just got too big a bloody heart."

"You'll forgive my Lord his curses… he was not always a lord. He was once a grumpy young man… though older than me… and hedge knight when he came to serve my father as he took our house into the rebellion…" Her hands fluttered over the bird, threaded needles, broke knitting needles for splints.

"Shush Cara… you talk too bloody much."

"I work better at my needle craft if I gossip at the same time… And I don't hear our large patchwork friend here sharing his life story, do you?" She paused, assessing her work. "There, if the stitches hold, and she is as hardy as you say… you may be fortunate and keep your livelihood after all."

Sandor looked down at the bird. She'd swaddled her in fresh linens after stitching the creature up, and he could not tell what kind of a job she had done. But the bird's eyes were open and bright.

"Thank you, my Lady." She nodded in acknowledgement.

He grabbed the innkeep as he bustled past. "A room, private like." He pushed coins into his hand. "Now."

***

He paced, checking on the bird that lay on the bed and then checking out the window at the reddening sky. Would the wounds follow her through the change or vanish? If they did not… the bird was weak, but Sansa was strong. Perhaps she would be okay, if she could just change back. The minutes ticked by and he prayed, again to gods he had never really followed, that the sun would set soon.

Finally the smoke came. But with it came Sansa's screams.

He was so used to his change hurting like the Seven Hells he thought for a moment that she now suffered the same way. Then he realised that the stitches were not holding. Her body was reforming as the girl's but the stitches were not growing with her. Each one had torn, and the scores on her belly were re-opening and tearing.

Quickly, he pulled out his dagger and ripped it through her new travel dress, and then the shift beneath it, already stained by a growing pool of blood. He tried hard to ignore her nakedness. He'd opened her clothes from neck to just below her navel, and he made himself focus intently on her belly where the wounds were. For a moment, just a moment, he caught sight of the pale, delicate skin just over her collar bone. Were those freckles he saw? Fucking hell, he had to concentrate on stopping the bleeding. They had no fucking time before his change would come and stop him from helping her. But the memory of those freckles was scored into his mind anyway.

Finally he could bind her wounds closed. He could not stitch them as Cara had. But now, seeing them again, this time on her proper shape, they did not seem so bad. They had not pierced organs or exposed them. She would be stiff and in pain for a while, and might be left with scars on that white skin of her belly… But the danger had passed.

The splint on her arm, made with knitting needles, had fallen apart when she had changed as well. But the work Cara had done in resetting the bone remained. He quickly made a sling from a sheet and supported the arm in it. Would she fly again?

Her eyes opened weakly then and she smiled up at him, before closing them and returning to unconsciousness. His change came and went moments after. And once he had stopped shaking with pain he joined her on the bed, closely watching her breathing for most of the night.

***

SANSA

She stirred, trying at first to make sense of the sounds she could hear. Then memory flooded back, and she knew he was trying to change without waking her, muffling the dog's howls that quickly became a man's groans. She felt the bed shake as he lay down next to her, panting as quietly as he could.

A bed. She was in a bed. And there were sheets tightly bound around her, covering her up to her…. Oh gods, he'd had to rip open her dress after she changed hadn't he? She peered to her left where he lay. His bare back was to her. In the morning's half-light she could make out a few long, raised, scars that marred his skin, the fall of his dark hair onto the pillows, and the line of his back and waist disappearing under the bloodied sheets he had dragged quickly over his lower half. She blushed, there were only sheets between their bodies.

Thinking of that made her remember her wounds. Experimenting, she shifted in her sheet bandage and was relieved that she felt no pain, only a slight discomfort. Stretching her fingers, she tested the broken arm… no pain there either. She had thought that the wounds were great, but it seemed she had been wrong. No, not wrong, she had been seriously hurt. They had healed…

"Stop shaking little bird. I aint touching you." His voice was weary, bitter and hard.

"No… I…"

"I know that fucking prize between your legs is for your brother to give away!"

"Why do you have to be so… disgusting!?"

He twisted then, heavily turning over to face her, his face inches from her own, his eyes a grey storm of anger.

"It aint disgusting if you do it right!"

The storm passed as quickly as it had come, and was replaced by a new look in his eyes, and suddenly Sansa remembered Iveia's words. Some men would ask, and some men would take.

His lips were on hers before she could protest. In her dreams they were hard, demanding. But this kiss was soft, chaste even. He breathed against her as his lips pressed lightly on hers. And as something inside her both melted and tensed, she knew that Iveia, for all her experience, had not known there was a third type of man. Some men would give.

She felt bereft as he moved back from her. If she had been a more cunning lady of the court she might have mock batted at him, called him a beast and a rogue… and then demanded another kiss. Or she might have known the words to tell him that it was okay. That she didn't hate him. That he was not as broken as he thought. But she was awkward and silent, and she could not tell how he took that silence in the dim room, light starting to make its way in through the shutters, his face more in shadow than in light.

"I was afraid you'd left me little bird. What happened to you?" He still lay facing her, his broad body curved towards hers, as though protecting her. She remembered the gentle hands that had lifted her and cradled her close to his chest. All that strength and rage in him, and he had picked her up so delicately.

"A bird attacked me… I don't know what it was. Larger than me. It would not let me go. I do not know if I had entered its territory…"

She removed her arm from the sling.

"Careful girl!"

"It does not hurt. It must be the curse… I could not have healed this fast!"

She lifted her arm, stretching her fingers as they both looked up at them from the bed. He raised his hand to touch hers and they were close to touching when the change came, her fingertips starting to stretch and flow into grey whispering smoke.

The smoke whirled around the room, watched by the man on the bed, before coming back together as the singing bird who swooped around the room, filling it with song.

Just in time for the knock at the door, and the arrival of Lady Cara.

She watched from a high perch as Sandor threw on his clothes, taking the time to add the half mask and the cloak and to throw the bloodied sheets under the bed, before he opened the door to her.

"Good morning! Oh…" She was thrown by the disguise, not expecting him to be dressed in motley so early. "I see you are in character…"

"A good performer always is lass." Was he being flirtatious?!

"I made you something, for the little bird." She held up a strange contraption. It was a wooden bowl with a simplpe rope woven around it, four points coming together above the bowl to make a point, with large holes in the weave as it departed from the bowl. Inside which were scraps of silks and cottons.

The Hound looked confused.

"It's to carry her in. You can tie it to your saddle, and she can rest in here, see. A cage would be better, that would stop her trying to fly out…"

"No cages!" He paused, drawing on memories of court and courtly behaviour Sansa thought. "Thank you my lady. That is very gracious." He bowed deeply.

"Oh. But I see the little bird up there… is she able to fly already!?"

"I told ye. These Summer Isle birds are very hardy…"

"Yes, but…"

Sansa flew down then, landing on the lady's shoulder and bursting into a trilling song. Lady Cara was enraptured, and her misgivings passed quickly.

"Oh lovely! Just lovely! That decides it! Since your bird is better, you can now join our group as we travel on to Oldtown. We are heading there for the last part of my eldest girl's confinement… a grandmother, me?! Anyway, travelling together will be safer, and I would love to hear more of your bird's songs. Do please say yes!"

The Hound looked as though some internal struggle was going on… but finally he nodded curtly.

Sansa sang louder and sweeter for the smiling lady.

***

SANDOR

As the road wound its way south and the sun reached its zenith, Sandor noticed the elder knight falling back in the party, letting his horse slow to join him and Stranger at the rear of the group. Seven hells, he'd thought this would happen. No way joining the Vallens' vanguard would ever end well. Most like the grey haired old man would threaten to unleash his guards on him, and the Hound would have to fight them all. Shame, he'd liked the little gentle lady, he didn't want to widow her. He readied himself as the knight nodded and steered his gelding to walk beside Stranger, the difference in size between the two horses apparent.

"Cara wants you to stay at our manse near Oldtown…"

Sandor was taken aback, that wasn't what he had expected to hear.

"Told her you'd say no. But she don't give up easy."

Sandor grunted, he'd seen that.

"Sent me to ask you."

The old man's tone was curt, but he didn't seem cross. It was just the way he spoke.

"Think about it."

They rode on in silence for a while, the horses matching each other's pace as the gap with the other horses grew.

"Nice horse."

Sandor nodded in agreement.

"Too nice for an entertainer."

He tensed again, dropping his hand to his dagger.

"Daft bloody ribbons. You shouldn't shame a good horse like that with fucking ribbons."

Sandor gave a low chuckle then. The bird was asleep in Lady Cara's contraption, and he missed talking with her… at her.

"It was my lady's idea…"

"Ah. What we do for our ladies…" Donal laughed ruefully.

"She told you I was a hedge knight? I served her father. Lord of the Lilies… a sickly man but a big purse. He hired all his swords, he had no sons. And she was little when I first saw her."

The man sighed and stared into the sky, remembering, the creases of his face deepening. Sansa would probably say he had a noble face with a strong jaw and flowing hair even if it was speckled with white.

"Not even flowered, just this slip of a girl with burnished brown hair that she brushed a hundred times before bed, and a determined look to her eyes. Turned that look on me though, didn't she? Even though I was much older than her… Next time I saw her, five years later, she announced we would wed."

He frowned, remembering. "The old Lord was furious of course. But he needed me and the men I could bring to him. So he said we could wed after I returned from serving his cause in Robert's rebellion, hoping I'd die out there. Of course I came back like this."

Sandor's eyes drifted to the empty sleeve.

"Her father was overjoyed of course. Thought she'd put me aside and finally accept his choice of husband. But he didn't know his daughter very fucking well!"

He looked at her then, where she rode surrounded by his guards ahead of them.

"You saw her with your bird. She has a big heart for broken things. Of course, with me she showed it by making me do everything for me self. I got right quick enough. Though at first there were many, many days I lost to the goblet and the glass…"

Sandor grunted.

"Took her name and her sigil. Some might see that as wrong. Don't fucking care. She's my lady."

He looked straight at Sandor then, his eyes burning into him.

"That's how I recognised you. I wore the sleeping dog before I wore the lily. Made men careless around me in tourneys. They called me 'dozy'… but they forgot about not waking sleeping dogs." He smiled darkly, and Sandor could see the rage in him, resting, but still there if it was needed.

"And a dog pays attention to other dogs. When I saw House Clegane on the field I paid attention. One dog sleeping, three dogs running… azure field, yellow field. And there's your horse of course, stupid ribbons aside. And once you've seen the Hound… well you have an attitude to you… stupid bloody mask aside."

"Why the story? Why not just tell me that you knew me."

"Because you should know a little of my wife too, boy. She's silk on the outside, and steel inside. Maybe you've known women like that…?"

"Might have done."

"Then you know…. There are women who have their own ideas about what they want. And we give it to them. Because it pleases us to give it to them."

He thought then of the decision to go to Highgarden. Sansa had decided to avoid it for his sake, and he'd given the fairy tale castle to her like a present… for her sake.

"So you'll come to our manse. Let that bird sing for her and her ladies. You'll get coin, a bed, good food."

"I like me privacy. Sundown to sun up. A room, away from the others and no disturbances."

The elder knight laughed gruffly.

"You can bring all the whores there you like, boy. Just never let Cara see them."

"It's not that… it's a religious thing."

"Never took the Hound for a kneeling fool…"

"I've recently been converted. Look at everything the gods have done for us two old dogs."

Donal laughed heartily at that, making his lady turn to look back at them, just as he slapped Sandor on his shoulder with his good arm.

Cara smiled triumphantly.

***

He nudged Stranger off of the road as the sun began to set. He made no excuses, gave no explanation. Let Lord Vallen mumble something about him being a devout kneeler to his lady. He had no skill in lying and he'd rather not do it to her face.

The bird was still resting in the contraption. He'd suggested she stay there so as not to draw attention to her 'miraculous' recovery. One day he'd understand this bloody curse. Tying them together and bringing her back from the brink of death… for what? So she could live this half-life with him? He'd love just an hour with Heyrick in a dark, forgotten dungeon cell somewhere…

He found a small clearing well away from the road, and tied up the horse, undoing his burdens and removing the bird from her fake nest before unhitching the saddle and resting it on the ground. She flew around him then, smoke already making a trail behind her. As he watched her change start he braced himself. This was the first time that they would have a chance to talk since… since he kissed her.

If you could call it a kiss! A bloody septa or a maiden aunt could have put more passion into a kiss than he had. No wonder she hadn't responded to him. Had he wanted her to? He couldn't remember what was going through his fucking head when he'd done it. He'd just been relieved that she was alive. Relieved and angry at her fidgeting beside her. And that relief and anger had become… a soft, nothing kiss!

But what did he want to say to her anyway?

She went to land nearby as the change was finishing, a human shape within the swirl of grey. But then he saw the pale figure in the smoke suddenly dash off into the tree cover. Her pale… naked… figure.

"Help!" She shrieked.

He laughed heartily then, remembering suddenly what had happened to her fine travelling dress. After he'd torn it from her hadn't he let it drop to the floor with the other bloodied sheets? He'd forgotten it with Lady Cara's arrival, and by then the girl was a bird anyways… no need of clothes; happily singing and well again.

"It is not amusing!" Her indignant voice came from the shadows under the trees. He squinted but he couldn't see her.

"It is, girl. For the first time you get to be the naked one."

"Get me a dress!"

He looked around, exaggerating the gesture, assuming that she could see him even if he couldn't see her.

"Do you see any bloody dressmakers here little bird?"

"Ask Lady Cara…"

He laughed harder at that. "And will I tell that its for me when she asks what I need it for?"

"Do… something!"

He smiled darkly then. "You could just come out from the trees. Only me and Stranger here."

"I am naked!"

"So's the bird. All day long."

"It is not the same! Please… Sandor."

He undid his patchwork cloak and hood then, bundled them up and threw them towards the trees where they caught on branches and hung awkwardly.

"I'll turn around girl, you wear the disguise for once."

He bowed and turned, exaggerating the movements again. Behind him he heard the rustling of leaves and branches as she dragged it down from there and swept it over her.

He turned as he felt her small hand on his shoulder.

She was swamped by his cloak and looked younger than ever, her white face peeking out from the hood's dark depths as she held the length of it tightly around her. Seven fucking hells, and he had wanted to talk to her about the kiss?! He never should have done it. He was no Donal, she was no Cara where stubbornness could fix a relatively small difference in status. He was a fugitive from his sworn role in court. She was from a great house and had duties, responsibilities to fulfil. What had he hoped for? That she'd kiss him sweetly, repeatedly, over the weeks and months till they fixed this damn curse, and then happily trot off to her chosen husband's bed? Or would he have convinced her to share his bed and then ruin any future hope for a settled life she might have? He would ruin her.

She smiled at him tentatively and he frowned down at her, all traces of good humour gone from him.

"What's wrong…? Sandor?"

He tried hard no to imagine what lay under his cloak now.

"S'nothing. I'll hunt for us…"

He made to walk for the woods.

"You are going? Already? But we have a moment before… we could sit. Together." Her blue eyes were wide and confused. Gods damn him.

"Find some other lordling to moon over you girl. I'll be filling our bellies while he writes you poetry."

"Sandor!"

"No girl! I've things to do!"

He marched into the trees, frowning deeply as he disappeared into the shadows. He didn't look back but he could see her behind him in his mind's eye. The little maid in the big dog's cloak, a puzzled face on her face. Mouth slightly open in surprise. Lips unkissed.


	9. Chapter 9

SANSA

For the following days on the road things were not… right… between them. During the day he was quiet. He would speak only with Lord Vallen or Cara, and then, only when necessary. He no longer whispered stories to her when he could. At first she stayed by him, then as the days got quieter and quieter she took to wing more often and lost herself in flight. She would return, reluctantly, as the sun began to set, to join him for their changes. But even then, as bird became girl and man became dog, there were few words. He would walk off with long strides into the woods to change and to hunt as soon as he had passed her the patchwork cloak to wear. In the mornings she'd wake and the dog would not be there. The man would reappear, dressed and dark of eye, seconds before her change in the morning light.

On the day that the manse appeared on the horizon for the riders, and the maze of Oldtown beyond it, the bird was already circling over the estate. Later in the day the riders arrived into the courtyard of the large house and she swooped down to re-join the Hound as he dismounted, settling on his shoulder. Lady Cara smiled to see the bird's return. But he did not.

Sansa watched as serving girls bustled to the Lady's commands. Donal threw the Hound a coin purse shouting that it was for the week's entertainment, before he disappeared into the house. Lady Cara sighed and tutted. "That's no way to treat a guest!" She muttered under her breath, before turning her attention to the waiting servants in their plain grey dresses and purple aprons, the Lily sigil over their breasts.

"Dorna… take Anders to the tower room."

Sansa saw the Hound stiffen as she used the name Donal had given him. He had said that it was too close to his true name, but the wry old lord had merely smiled. Sansa thought he enjoyed knowing something his wife did not for once and was playing with her.

Dorna bobbed and curtsied. She was a young girl, possibly of Sansa's age, but with a thickness of waist and plumpness of face she did not have. But Sansa envied her long fair hair, flowing in waves under her cap, and down her back. Sansa's hair sat just above her shoulders now, and the word 'flowing' would not be used about it for a long time indeed.

"Once you are settled you may have the run of the house. Or if you wish, Oldtown is but a mile away. But I would hope that your bird might sing for us after supper? In the great hall…" Lady Cara smiled, but it was not a request.

"Of course… my lady." Cara nodded and drifted off to other business as lady of the house.

The Hound followed the little serving girl through a smaller door to the house, and then up a steep spiralling staircase. Doors lead off of the stone steps, but the girl did not stop until the very top, puffing a little with the effort. Sansa was surprised to see the Hound's eyes so taken with the serving girl, he seemed to be watching her every step. She was not… ugly, Sansa supposed. Perhaps… it had been a long time since Kings Landing, afterall. And the woman at the King's Hope had not… She tried not to follow where her thoughts were leading her, but a memory entered her mind, unprompted, of young girls at the Red Keep gossiping about men's… needs.

"'ere you are mi'lord."

"Ain't no lord." He was gruff, but he softened his tone as he spoke to Dorna again, "I'm just a travelling entertainer, girl."

"Ohhh, I thought so, from the mask an'all. You ever been to Dorne?" She was sorting through keys on a chain at her waist. "I'm named for Dorne. Closest me mam got was this house though."

"No, not been to Dorne… yet." The girl opened the door to the tower room. It was a simple round room, a single window overlooking the courtyard, a hearth, a bed, and a table with two chairs. The furnishings were rich and elaborate, although not recently aired Sansa thought. Oh gods, she realised, at their change there would be nowhere for them to go. An unexpected dog, or girl, leaving this room would definitely be noticed. The bird at least would be free to come and go…

"What do you call that…?" Sansa turned her head back to the Hound, noticing his eyes on the girl again. "That colour, what do you call that?"

"The colour… mi'lord?" He started to look impatient.

"The colour on your…. Your…"

"My apron mi'lord? It's the Vallen Purple. Though, if you ask me, it's a pretty normal purple, don't need a special name."

"Aye. Thank you."

"If that'll be all… I'll be back this evening with a bathtub if you'd like-"

"No! No… I'll be heading to Oldtown now. I'll bathe there."

She bobbed another curtsey and left them alone then.

***

Oldtown was a maze of streets, and the Hound had to leave Stranger stabled near the outer walls, throwing coin to a boy to take care of the horse. However, Sansa thought that the city was far pleasanter than what she had seen of the common streets of Kings Landing. The jumble of life here got on without mess and with an almost studious efficiency. But perhaps that impression came from the number of maesters she saw walking the streets, some grey haired and with what looked like burdensome chains of many links, others fresh faced and simply wearing the same dark robes.

The Hound walked with what seemed like purpose, keeping a sharp pace and moving swiftly between crowds of people. Why had he wanted to come here? He could have stayed at the great house and feasted, or drunk, at his leisure. But he seemed not to be in the mood to share his thoughts with her, so she remained on his shoulder, shrinking back from the sea of faces that watched the patchwork man with the curious bird on his shoulder.

Finally the Hound seemed to find what he was looking for. A small shop crammed between other similar shops, its inside seeming dim and shadowy compared to the bright daylight outside. It faced onto a courtyard built around a single oak tree where someone had tied colourful paper lanterns many moons ago, and which were now faded pale by the sun and rain

"Stay here." She fluttered up to the lower branches of the oak and tilted her head in confusion. But he was already heading into the shop, ducking his head to get through the door.

Sansa was not sure how long passed before he finally re-emerged. It felt like an age, so as she sat in the tree she watched the few people who passed this way before disappearing down other winding alleys and streets. A young maester shuffled past her at one point, his noise down in a book. He had no chainlinks yet, so just a novice then, she thought. He could have been any one of the hundreds she had seen so far in Oldtown today. His face was very…unremarkable. However, just as she was thinking that thought, the novice looked up at her. In the tree she was partially hidden by leaves, but he looked straight at her. And licked his lips.

She blinked, unsure that she had seen what she thought she had seen. The novice was already walking on, staring back into his book as though nothing had happened. Perhaps it had not happened, she could not be sure…

When the Hound finally made his way out of the shop, he held up a hand and she flew down to re-join him. "We'll need to return later. There's a place nearby we can get some food and drink". She wanted to tell him about the novice, but how could she until her change?

He walked them to a simple inn and took a seat outside. The coin purse he'd had from Lord Vallen rested on the table and Sansa noticed that it did not seem as full as before. But still, he ordered a decent meal and wine to wash it down as well. Men and women walking past eyed up the large man in his mask and the little bird. But none of them commented upon them until a small boy of six with a dirty face paused in his running and stood boldly in front of them, hands on his hips.

"What does she do, then?"

The Hound paused from ripping into a lambshank with his teeth to consider the boy.

"She sings."

"Is it pretty?"

"Aye, its pretty. But she sings fer coin."

The boy sighed and shrugged, holding open empty, and dirty, palms.

But Sansa burst into a trilling song anyway. The Hound's face grew dark as other walkers paused in their chores to see where the sound was coming from. A few threw coins which the boy scarpered about and collected for them. He deposited them on the table as she stopped, and the Hound grabbed his wrist as he went to move away. "Is that the lot, boy…?!"

"Maybe… how about my commission?"

Sandor smiled darkly. And Sansa chirped once for yes.

"The bird likes you. Scarper before I change my mind about those coins." The boy bowed and run off, something making a clinking in his palms.

"You're a bleeding heart my lady."

It was the most he had said to her in what felt like a long time indeed. And she was very happy. So she sang until coins rained down on them again.

***

SANDOR

By the middle of the afternoon they started to make their way back towards the little shop. Although Sandor was not sure they were heading the right way. They had just turned down the third or fourth crooked alleyway when the man appeared at the end of it, silhouetted against the light at the end. The Hound tensed, wary always, the dagger at his waist. But the figure was just a smallish man, bundled up in the same grey, worn robes as the maesters he had seen so far, but with no chain. He prepared himself to nod a quick courtesy and to carry on to the shop to collect the items he had ordered.

But as the small man passed him he somehow managed to push into Sandor, pushing the wind out of him and pinning him to the wall of the alleyway. The bird fluttered away, knocked to the ground from his shoulder with the force of the shove. Seven fucking hells, but he was strong! The Hound bared his teeth as he tried to get his arms out of the vice like grip that held them tight against the angled stones of the alley wall.

"Where is it?!" the novice's face was in his, and he could see a madness in the simple man's eyes. "Where's the gemstone?!"

"What the fuck are you talking-"

"Don't try that! I can taste it on you. On your bird as well."

Sansa had flown up to a nearby balcony in front of some rotting shutters and was hoping from foot to foot in agitation, chirping frantically.

"You have it. But you shouldn't! You aren't one of my brothers!"

"Thank fuck for that!"

The small man backhanded Sandor then, stunning him for a moment with the force of it and making his lip bleed. The Hound licked his lip, tasting the blood.

"I can taste it on you as you can taste that blood! Who did you kill?!"

"You're going to have to narrow that question down my 'friend'" He smiled grimly, but the Hound was starting to feel… concern. The little man was much stronger than him. This could end badly for him.

The novice leaned closer, breathing heavily in front of his face. Sandor raised his knee sharply into the small man's manhood, where ever it lay under that thick robe. But the man didn't even blink. Instead he smiled darkly and licked the Hound's good cheek with a rasping tongue. Sandor's eyes widened in surprise.

"Aahhh, I understand now… that's very clever. Very clever. If a little melodramatic. He shaped it, before he died. He shaped it into a sharp little curse. I taste smoke and I taste fire. And the smell of dog. And the smell of… bird."

Sandor struggled again but it was pointless, the man held him completely captive, his fingers digging in to the flesh even through the patchwork cloak and the armour beneath.

"I tasted your bird on the wind… That's how I knew. I thought you'd tricked one of my brother's into giving it to you when he died, and then you used it to change her. But I see now. You killed him and then he gave it to you. Gave it to you as this curse." The man's eyes were wide and crazed, spittle flying from his lips as he jabbered. "I can cure you… I can break the curse. I can eat your heart while it beats and roast your bird to eat, licking the greases from my fingers after."

He leant close and whispered then. "There is of course another way… but I don't think either of you are strong enough to walk that long, long road to freedom. So let me lift it from you both now, take what my brother should have passed to one of his own… let me end your pain!"

Sandor hissed between gritted teeth. "Life is pain"

The man laughed, pulling out a vicious looking dagger from his robe. But as he did Sandor's eyes were drawn away from his twisted face, and back to the alley way. Was that smoke? But it couldn't be!

The large black bird was pure dark fury as it screamed and flew at the novice's face, tearing at it with claws and a vicious beak. The novice screamed and released Sandor as he tried to protect his face. It was some kind of raven he thought, huge dark wings flapping and obscuring his view of what was happening to the man. But it had red tail feathers.

Suddenly, the novice screamed sharper and louder than before, and for a moment Sandor caught sight of his face the hole there where his left eye once was. The novice turned and fled away down the alley way, holding onto his face as blood streamed from it.

The large bird landed as Sandor pushed away from the wall, shaking feeling into his arms again. Dark eyes watched him as he considered it.

"Girl… is that you?!"

The creature gave a caw sound. Once for yes.

Then it rose on large wings that disturbed the dust and dirt in the alley and circled above him as smoke started to trail from its wing feathers. Then the smoke overcame it, and then the small songbird in its usual golden brown and red was back, flying down to land on his shoulder. There was still blood on its claws and it sank deep into the patchwork cloak there.

***

SANSA

After Sandor had collected the three small packages from the shop and stowed them in Stranger's saddle bags, he rode the horse hard back to the Vallen manse, the bird keeping up on the wing. She knew he wanted to know what had happened, but she had no answers. Only that she had been more scared than she could remember, and that suddenly the smoke had come during the day and that she had changed. On the road, against the thieves, it had not happened. But the novice had terrified her to the bone, and he had known them… known about the bird and the dog.

As soon as they were back Sandor left Stranger at the stables with one of the boys, grabbed his packages, and bounded up the stairs to the tower room, two steps at a time. She met him there, flying through the open window and landing on the table by a bottle of deep red wine. He was out of breath, but he panted the words out at her.

"Can you… can you change again? Back to how you ought to be…?!"

She chirped quietly, sadly. Twice for no.

He threw himself into one of the chairs, a padded thing with a high back that breathed out dust as he landed in it.

"Well, fuck me. I thought we might have broken the thing then…"

She flew over and landed on his knee, looking up with clear blue eyes into his dark grey ones as he spoke.

"He knew. He knew about the curse. And he knew about Heyrick, in a way". He was thinking it all through, she could see. "There's others, like Heyrick, like the novice today. More smug looking twats with magic… or some such shit."

He rubbed the stubble on the good side of his face. "We need to think about whether going to the Citadel for help is a good idea, or no." He frowned. "There might be more of them in that nest of grey robes."

There was a short, hesitant knock at the door and Dorna's voice came from the other side.

"My lord… the evening meal. Did you need that bath after all?"

"Aye lass" He shouted back out to her and then quietened his roar, for her ears, "After all, we have a show to put on, don't we little bird?"

He ran a large finger down over the smooth feathers of her head, and she trembled under his touch.

"You took his eye girl. Not sure I've ever even done that." There was no pride in his voice, only a deep sadness. "We've got to break this thing. Before it breaks us…" He poured himself a goblet of wine from the bottle on the table, and drank deeply.

***

The Hound was thoroughly drunk. He'd filled himself with wine from the room, drinking it in the bath that had been quickly filled by Dorna and other serving girls. Then at the feast he'd kept on drinking the southron red wine, till it had stained his lips black. Sansa had watched with a growing feeling of dread. In some ways she was surprised it had not happened sooner. After all that they had been through; fleeing Kings Landing, the curse, living on the road… Of course he'd been drinking, when there was wine. But drinking for the sake of drinking, not like this, not for the oblivion drink could buy him.

The Lady Cara and Lord Donal were ignorant of the state he was getting himself into, sitting as they were, above the salt with their family. The handsome sons and beautiful daughters, one blooming in the late stages of a pregnancy, kept them company while Sandor had found men of swords and swear words to drink with. They'd taken him for one of their own, even though he wore the dark motley cloak and mask. They could tell he could manage the sword at his back, the dagger at his waist, the goblet in his hand.

When it came time for her to sing for their supper he staggered and reeled. Donal frowned, Cara's lips formed a surprised shape. But she sang quickly to cover his mumbled introduction and his comments about the little bird he'd found in Winterfell… She wheeled around the great hall hoping her acrobatics would make them forget that he'd said the exotic bird was from the North. Hoping to distract from the sound of him falling over his stool.

Finally, just as the sun was threatening to set, he mumbled his apologies and staggered towards the tower room. Once inside, he bolted the door and made for the table and the replaced bottle of wine there. Mentally, Sansa cursed Dorna for being so attentive. He struggled to remove his boots and slumped back in the wheezing chair again.

"Come girl. Sit on my lap again… Sing for me."

She chirped twice and he threw his boot at her, missing by a long way.

Moments later she threw it back, with the girl's hands. It missed him completely but he didn't care, his head was resting on the back of the chair, his eyes closed as he drifted on his red wine sea.

"Tell me the sun isn't down…"

"It's time again, Sandor."

"Say that again… say my name.

"Shhh now." She moved behind him crouched down, moving damp strands of his hair away from his face.

"Are you naked girl…?" He smiled but he didn't open his eyes.

"I will take your cloak"

"On the bed, the packages. All for you. It's all for you" He was starting to doze, his voice becoming more and more indistinct.

She walked over and opened the brown paper. Inside the first two were simple travelling dresses in a sturdy, if dull, material. Inside the third was a plain dress in grey and a purple apron. Just as the serving girls wore.

"I thought… You don't want to be stuck in here with the old dog."

"I do not mind so much."

"It's just another cage. A nice room with a nice fire in the hearth. But a cage anyways." He was quiet then, and she quickly dressed in the serving girl disguise. As she finished tying the final knot in the bodice she heard him groan in pain.

"I thought… the wine, maybe. Maybe it would stop the pain." He groaned again and opened his eyes, looking at her, beseeching her.

She came to him then and knelt down, resting her head on his knee. And she began to sing.

***

The dog had curled himself up on the great bed, his scarred muzzle resting on his front paws. She could not tell if it was weariness or whether the drink had followed him through the change, but she left him there, quickly running the antler comb through her hair and straightening the serving girl's dress before tip toeing out of the tower room.

It occurred to her then, suddenly, that both things had been bought for her by the Hound. Not because she'd asked for them, not because she had whined and wheedled for gifts and treats, but because she'd needed them. He was thinking of her. She shivered and hugged her arms to her body as though suddenly cold, but also strangely hot.

The adventure of escaping the tower room and exploring the rest of the manse soon pushed such thoughts away and her heart skipped at every sound as she crept down the spiralling steps. The disguise was fair, but anyone looking closely would know she was a stranger, and that she did not have the Vallen Lily embroidered on her chest. But if she stuck to the shadows, or stayed at a distance from the staff of the house, she might be able to look around and explore.

She made her way into the main house, and cautiously headed back towards the great hall where the stumbling Hound had left the rest of the household behind him as he had wandered back to his room. Peering around the main door she saw servants moving long tables and pew seats to sweep the floor and laying down new sweet smelling rushes. The mess of the meal was long gone, although a few hunting dogs sat near the large fireplace and chewed on bones and wolfed down bowls of mixed up slops.

Sansa was about to move on, to look down other corridors and passage ways, when a girl's voice behind her made her jump.

"Who are you?!"

Sans turned quickly to see Dorna behind her, hands on her hips and a cross look on her face.

"I'm new… Lady Cara hired me in Highgarden-"

"Horse doings! You didn't turn up with her and the Lord. 'sides… she aint going to hire some new girl without telling the steward… and the steward would tell the head serving girl… and she would've told me!"

Sansa moved quickly and pushed the other girl into the shadows, away from the great door to the hall. Dorna had size and weight on her, but she wasn't expecting Sansa to shove her, and she found herself up against a wall, Sansa's hand on her mouth to stifle the scream that was coming.

"Shhhh! Shhh… please!" Sansa thought quickly, and spun a half truth. "I'm with the entertainer… Anders. I'm the daughter of a Highgarden merchant. Anders and his bird were a treat for the guests at my betrothal feast. But we took to each other, and when he left Highgarden I fled with him! Please, please don't tell anyone…" She took away her hand from Dorna's mouth then.

"Why you dressed like a Vallen serving girl then eh?!""

"He stole the clothes for me… I only had my betrothal gown to wear and on the road it got spoiled and torn…"

Dorna squinted in the shadows to make out her face, judging her.

"Hmmm, maybe that's the truth of it." She grabbed Sansa's hand quickly and turned it over to look at the palm. "That's certainly the hand of someone who's never had to work a day in their life. Your husband to be… ugly was he?"

"And old!"

"The entertainer… he's a big man. What's he like between the sheets then, eh?"

Sansa blushed and looked away.

"Come on!"

"He's very… gentle."

Dorna leant closer, a conspiratorial look in her eyes. "Aye, gentle when you want gentle… and rough when you want rough, I think. He has lovely big hands… Does he have a brother?"

The blood fled from Sansa's face. "Not one you'd want to meet."

"Shame…" Dorna looked around, taking in the bustle of the great hall and the dark passage ways. "I wouldn't walk these halls anyways girl. There's some men here who I've had to put back in their place before. A swift kick in the manhood'll do it, but you're a slip of a thing, you might not be able to."

She reached into her bodice and drew out a small knife, not really much more than a vegetable peeler.

"'ere, keep this on you just in case". Sansa nodded her thanks and slipped it into her bodice in the same place.

Dorna sighed.

"It's awful romantic, escaping from your wretched husband to be to go on the road with a dashing stranger! Good luck to ye!" She hugged Sansa briefly and swept off into the great hall, all ready to shout commands and order the other girls around.

***

After she left Dorna Sansa decided to make her way back to the tower room. Her adventure did not seem so tempting now that she felt the small knife resting against her chest. To do so however, she had to dash through the shadows of the courtyard, and so she was there when the visitor arrived at the main gates. The guards let him in after a moment's discussion and Sansa saw a man on a smallish horse pull up by the stables and dismount. Her heart started to pound in her chest as she saw that he wore dark grey robes. In the moonlight she could make out the shine of chains on his chests. She prayed quickly that he was just a simple maester, but as he turned she could see vivid red lines, turned grey in the moonlight, scoring his face. One of his eyes was a swollen mess. It was the novice.

He did not seem as badly injured as she had thought. The red lines were not the deep rips she had left him with. And under that swelling was there…? Yes! He had two eyes again!

A shiver ran down Sansa's spine and as he was turning to take care of his horse she ran for the door at the bottom of the tower and dashed inside, taking the steps as quickly as she dared. She slammed the tower room's door behind her and bolted it, slamming the metal into place. The dog was still sleeping on the bed and for a second she was reminded of Lord Vallen's original sigil, but thought to wake him anyway.

But what could he do in this form?! They had to flee, but as Sansa looked around their room she noted the things she would struggle to carry down the steps on her own. Sandor's armour, his great sword… perhaps she could make several trips, and she thought she knew how he tied his armour to the horse's saddle. The saddle! How could she hope to get that up onto Stranger's back?! And say she did, there were guards at the main gates. They could not get out! What could they do?!

Sansa slid down the banded door, keeping her back against it, as though her body could bar it further. Sitting on the floor in the muddle of her skirts she drew the knife from her bodice. It was such a little thing but so sharp. For a moment she was entranced by the light reflecting from it as she turned it, first one way, and then the other.

She'd taken the novice's eye to save them before. Could she now take his life?


	10. Chapter 10

KAI

Kai watched the Mountain's men unfurl the banners with a well hidden sneer. There was the three dogs on yellow of House Clegane, the Crowned Stag for King Joffrey, and even the Lion of the Lannisters. As approaches went it was as subtle as a bludgeon to the face. Even some of the Mountain's men voiced their disapproval. They wanted to enter Highgarden like thieves and deal with it like thieves as well… or like rapers, arsonists and killers.

But those that had complained were still looking for odd teeth in the long grass. The Mountain's leash on his men had to be absolute.

Likewise, Kai thought, my own leash on them. His right hand drifted to the leather purse at his waist and he weighed it in his palm. Its contents would not interest even the most desperate cut purse. Inside was a collection of smooth, dull, grey stones. Some were no more than pebbles, and even the largest was not large enough to cover his palm. That one belonged to Gregor Clegane, and Kai could find it in the bag within moments if necessary.

First though he wanted to see how the Mountain handled the situation before he pulled on that particular leash. There was always a risk, even with these small dull grey men, that the beast would feel the leash and turn on the bearer. Best to wait and see if the Mountain would follow the commands on civility he had surely received from the Queen. There was no way she would want him to lead his men into Highgarden where they could damage the newly formed alliance, soon to be sealed by marriage.

An hour passed, but still Kai kept careful watch on the walls as the other men fell to gambling and drinking. The Mountain also remained on his warhorse, impassive face turned to the white walls of Highgarden. However Kai doubted he was tasting the air as he was, noting the streams of the curse's taint and decided where the dog and the bird had gone. They had stayed within the walls, that was clear to him, but after… the scent was strongest to the south, but they had not come out of the main gates again. Kai sighed mentally, all of this waiting around was for nought, they were long gone.

Finally the guards were pushed open and several figures on horseback emerged, one in armour was carrying the flower of Highgarden and the Tyrells, trailing behind the others. The Mountain hawked up and spat upon the grass. The lead horse carried a serious looking man with a closely cropped dark beard. Kai ignored him, he had already recognised the Septon who came with the small party. To the others he would seem to be completely ordinary, a man of no note, and no unusual features. Had the Mountain ever met Ektor he might have noted the same ordinariness of features that Ektor had, the same ageless undistinguished look. But to Kai he looked very remarkable, and very familiar.

As the Mountain passed flat pleasantries with Ser Willas Tyrell, the lead rider, Kai and the Septon communicated through the smallest of movements in face and hand. His brother reported much that he had already gathered. Sandor Clegane and the Stark girl had been here, but had moved on already. Kai questioned why he had not held them here, and the Septon was overly apologetic, the fugitives had received sanctuary from Willas and his consort in a private garden and the Septon had only tasted them after their departure. Kai was furious, but to all others he seemed as stony faced as ever. The Septon promised to make amends at the new moon with a larger sacrifice than usual, and Kai grudgingly nodded his acceptance.

Suddenly he was brought back to the conversation between the Mountain and Ser Willas. The latter was offering Gregor and his men the hospitality of his city, and some of the men at the back of the pack were smirking and sniggering at the offer. Kai slipped his hand into the purse and grasped the Mountain's stone, pulling back on the leash before he could answer the offer.

"No Ser. If you haven't seen the pair we're hunting, then we'll stay on the road and run them down there."

"I wish we could help more."

They nodded at each other and the Highgarden party wheeled away and cantered back to the main gates. The Mountain spat again, and drank deeply from a wine skin. The faces of his men were dark and sullen but this time no one spoke out against the plan to move on. Kai released his grip on the Mountain and their party moved to rejoin the road.

***

SANDOR

The Hound woke as the dog, and with the aching need to bite someone, anyone, if only it would make the pain in his head go away. Seven hells, this was by far the worst he'd ever felt after a night drinking. Maybe because the dog was so unused to it, maybe because he regretted doing it. He'd just been so fucking mad about… everything. He'd thought they'd fixed it all when the bird had changed, but she was just becoming darker and darker. She'd taken the novice's eye for fuck's sake!

He looked around the room then, searching for her even though his head swam with the effort. He saw her slumped against the door of the tower room and his heart stopped. But she was just asleep, her chest rising and falling against the serving girl's dress, breath stirring the dark hair that had fallen over her face. He jumped down from the bed and went over to her. He saw then that her hand had fallen from where the other lay in her lap to rest, open, on the floor, and that a small knife had spilled from it to roll onto the floor. Last night she had been his guardian.

He struggled silently through his change as it came, holding down the pain that reverberated more in his head this time. Then he dressed quickly, before lifting her up and carrying her to the bed. She stirred and he brushed her hair back from her face.

"Sleep little bird, sleep." But she opened her eyes and sat up quickly.

"We have to leave… we have to leave now!"

"What?"

"The novice, he's here. I meant to… I was going to- it doesn't matter. We have to leave right away."

Sandor quickly strapped on his armour as Sansa rushed to get their belongings into the saddle bags. She was still spinning around the room in her panic when the smoke started.

"No! No! We don't have time…"

"I can do the rest girl." He gently took her by the arms to stop her whirling. "I'll get us out of here."

"No!" She was near sobbing, fear and panic on her face. "I do not want to leave you! Not now!"

She kissed him.

His first thought was how he must disgust her, the smell and taste of last night's wine on his breath and in his mouth. But that thought vanished as she pressed her lips harder against his. She did not know what she was doing but she pushed all her urgency and panic into the kiss and he held her tight against him until she pulled away, looking up at him with wide, heart-shattering, blue eyes.

He was so stunned that for a moment he did not notice that the smoke was gone. Sansa lifted her hands and stared at them in confusion. Sandor took them in his larger calloused ones.

"Did we… did we break the curse?" She asked so quietly he could barely hear her.

But he clearly heard the sob she made as the smoke returned.

"Lass, we have to go…"

He released her hands and watched as the smoke came fully, taking away her downcast face and her tears.

***

"…and then the Patchwork Knight rode his horse fast to the town, his beloved hawk flying high above him. The giant was smashing and crashing into the buildings, killing ladies and squishing men. And then the Patchwork Knight drew his great sword, Deathbringer, and cut him in half! And then he found all the Smiling Brothers who were hiding in the town and cut them in half too. And there was blood and guts everywhere! And then the Patchwork Knight saved the Princess. The end!"

The children sitting in the dirt in a half circle below the boy on the wooden table clapped and cheered. He did an elaborate bow, his body finally stilling after playing out the parts of the Knight, the giant and the creepy men he called 'Smiling Brothers'. Suddenly a baker dashed out of his shop, shouting at the children to clear off and they scattered to the alleyways, including the boy. But Sandor stepped out from the shadows he had been standing in, watching the show with folded arms and an amused smirk, and grabbed him quickly by the back of his shirt before picking him up. The boy looked up at him through a mess of dirty hair.

"It wasn't me!"

"What wasn't?"

"Whatever you think I did…"

"You told a good story. Seems to me I might have seen this Patchwork Knight before. And you. You collected the coins for us last time I was here."

"Mouse at yer service mi'lord."

Sandor put the boy down and then watched him look up at the bird on his shoulder, eyes wide and gleaming.

"She aint a hawk, boy."

"And yer sword aint called Deathbringer is it?"

Sandor grunted. "You know this city well?"

"Better than any!"

"We need an out of the way place to rest. Somewhere with more than one way in and a shit load of privacy."

"Might know a place. Cost you though…"

Sandor grabbed his shirt again and the bird chirped twice suddenly. Sandor let him go reluctantly.

"We'll negotiate."

The boy smiled and rubbed his hands together in glee. "Come with me then, and we can discuss terms as we walk."

"You're a sharp one, best be careful you don't cut yerself."

Mouse laughed and strode off, pointing out sights of the town as he went. Sandor followed but then interrupted the babble. There was something he needed to know.

"Who are the Smiling Brothers, boy?"

Mouse frowned and all the babbling died on his lips. "That's what we call'em, us that live on the streets. They don't look like much. Some are Septons, some are Maesters… novices and those will full chains. But they all look the same. Or like brothers at least. And when they look at you… they smile. And if they smile and give you sweets or cakes… Well, those children, they ain't seen again. Might not happen straight away. Might be a week later we look around and think, where's Jorge, or where's Jeynea? But they ain't seen again." He kicked at a stone in frustration.

"So you want me to 'cut'em in half'?"

"You got a sword, you got armour even if you hide it under that patchwork cloak. You could do it."

"How many are there?"

"Lots. I run errands for the Maesters sometimes. Sometimes I get a coin and a hot meal out of it. More and more my errands take me to one of them. They ain't given me the cake yet though. I'm useful, me."

"Do you know a Maester who isn't a Smiling Brother… one who's good with books and scrolls?"

"Yeah. Maester Bruth. He's too fat and bald to be a Smiling Brother. And he has this wart on his nose…"

"Tomorrow you'll take us to him. Might be there's silver in it for you."

His eyes got even wider, and he smiled, showing off the gaps where his milk teeth had already fallen out.

"You got family? You're too young to be out on the streets."

Mouse shrugged. "Got a brother. 'E comes by to see if I got coin for ale sometimes. At least I think he's my brother. He might be my father. He blacks my eye sometimes."

"And yer mother?"

"The red pox took her and my baby sister. Don't want to talk about that." The boy looked away, swallowing a lump in his throat. Sandor frowned, and felt the bird move around on his shoulder, her distress showing in her fidgeting.

"Take us to this place you know. There'll be coin and a meal."

He smiled and fair skipped along the street. "You wanna hear more stories of the Patchwork Knight? I got loads already…"

Sandor laughed deeply and the boy started prattling as they walked along the busy cobbled street, the common-folk making room for the large warrior in patchwork, the song bird on his shoulder, and the skinny, dirty, boy.

"And then there was the time that the Patchwork Knight fought the dragon…"

***

SANSA

The room was one of the poorest that they had found themselves in so far on this strange journey. And it was in a dark and twisted part of Oldtown where suspicious looking characters had eyed up the patchwork cloak and the bird, sneering as they judged the risk of taking them and the reward they might carry. But at least those shady folk had the irregular looks and pock marks of normal men. And not a single one had smiled at them, and for once Sansa was reassured by that.

She could accept the mould that spread across the wall, the cracked windows, even the smell, just as long as they could rest a while after their mad race from the Vallen household. It had almost felt like that first night again, when Kings Landing had burnt green in the night sky behind them. Except this time the sky was rising in a clear sky that she was flying through on brown and scarlet wings.

After the boy had brought them to these rooms, Sandor had sent him off again to fetch them food and drink, with clear orders to return before the sun set. Sandor had already grabbed chicken legs and bread from market stalls as they had wended their way to this decrepit dank building, following Mouse's erratic path. But he had then decided that they should stay hidden away tonight. If the Smiling Brothers could 'taste' them as the novice had done, then staying in one place should reduce the chance of one stumbling upon them.

But with Mouse out scouting food for them, and with Sansa in her bird shape, Sandor was having to deal with the silence and with having nothing to do. She had watched pace for a while, then throw himself onto the pallet that served as a bed, before getting up again to pace again. He was liked a caged beast, and she wondered if he would be worse when his change came and the dog was trapped in here with her. Both of them had grown accustomed to the road, and to their freedom. Sandor still defended hers, gruffly turning down the offers of a cage for the bird on his shoulder shouted at him by stall keepers.

After all while she noticed that his fidgeting movements had stilled and that he was focussing on something by the window. She stood on a timber beam above him and from her angle she could not quite make out what he was doing. After a moment she heard a creaking sigh as he pulled away a length of wood from the window frame and took it with him to the bed, the only furniture in the shabby room. He took out the small knife Dorna had given her from a saddle bag on the floor nearby and starting pushing the blade into the wood.

There were curses, shouts, and occasionally bits of wood were thrown into a far corner. Once he even got up to pull off another length of wood from the frame. He was so far leant over his work that Sansa could not see what he was doing clearly, his dark hair falling forward, his shadow covering the rest. Eventually the day was coming to an end so she flew down to the bed to await her change. After the smoke had vanished, she leant closer to him, trying to see what was in his hands.

"He's late. The boy. Told him to be back before sunset."

"What have you made?"

Suddenly Sandor seemed uncertain, still hiding the thing away in his large hands. She gently took his fingers and opened his hands out flat. In each hand was a small carved man, just longer than her greatest finger. One was larger, blockier, and even though the work was crude and jagged, she could see that he was meant to be wearing armour, lines scored into the soft wood marked pauldroons, a gorget, even boots. And the other… wasn't a man at all. He'd tried to carve a dress, widening the shape at the bottom for the skirts, and the hair was sleek and straight, but with lines to mark hair flowing down her back.

"Could you make him a cloak… a patchwork cloak? It'd need to be small."

"I could do that. Are they for Mouse?"

"Boy could use them in his storytelling. Earn him some extra coin."

"I thought you did not care for knights…?"

He laughed ruefully. "You been an influence on me, girl."

She realised that she was still gently touching his fingertips with her own, the figures lying there between them.

"And the woman?"

"You could make a cloak for her too I suppose."

"No, I meant… why did you make the woman?"

"The way he tells it, the Patchwork Knight saves the Princess…" He grimaced slightly, looking away.

"It's time?"

He nodded, not looking back. So she pulled his face towards hers with a gentle hand. Her eyes roamed over his scars. They were still bad, but what was worse was what they had done to him. And because of that they no longer scared her; they just made her angry on his behalf.

She moved to kiss him, but he pulled away.

"Little bird? What're you doing?"

"I thought… When I kissed you last, my change stopped. Only for a moment but…"

"So you'd kiss me to stop mine?!" Something was wrong, his muscles were tensing. He was pulling away from her.

"Or to make it easier."

He stood up quickly, pushing the figures into her hands.

"Don't do that, girl!"

"I just want to help!"

"I don't need your help!" The words were coming out sounding more and more alike to growls. He turned away, folding over as the fire spread through his body, remaking it. She looked away as he stripped his clothes quickly, throwing them at the walls of the room in his rage. When she looked back he was the dog, and he was throwing himself at the walls of the room, scratching at them with his claws and even snapping at them with his teeth.

As the fates were against them it was then that Mouse returned, opening the door with a smile on his face.

And the dog went for him.

***

MOUSE

The smile had been false.

He had walked back to the rickety old building where he'd left the Patchwork Knight and his bird with heavy footsteps. He'd already watched the sun go down through one good eye and one swollen one. He'd seen it as he sat on the steps of a pawnbroker's, looking down the street he should take to get back to them. For the first time ever he felt really bad about not doing what he was told. His belly ached with it.

When the maesters asked him to run errands for them he felt like their commands were flexible things, stretching and shifting to suit him. If he wanted to take a longer route that took him past the shop of the snobby old baker who threw out stale cakes too soon, he would. If he wanted to spend an hour or so digging around in the mudbanks of the river looking for lost coins, he would. But the Patchwork Knight's command about when to return had been given with such force… no not force, there had been something else in the large man's voice. Had it been fear?

But even though this time he had really meant to do as he was told, it had still gone wrong. Buying the food that the Knight had asked for had been the easy part. Getting it and the coins that had been leftover past his brother when he'd spotted Mouse in the street had been much, much harder. Mouse had whispered to the Father when he'd spotted Osric approaching, asking him for the strength to knock the much large man down this time. But the Father must have been busy dealing with the last of the War of the Five Kings, because Mouse ended up in the slimy gutter of the street again. With a black eye, but with no food and or coins.

Arriving at the Patchwork Knight's room he had opened the door wearing a wide smile, hoping he could find a way to talk his way out of the rage he assumed he'd be greeted with. But then an immense dog had charged towards him, snapping towards him with a muzzle full of sharp teeth and crazy rolling eyes! The little boy had fallen back onto his rump, reawakening the bruises Osric had already given him. He squeezed his eyes shut, expecting to feel those fangs ripping into his neck at any moment.

"No! No! Bad dog!" A woman's voice came and saved him.

There was a cold, steel-like edge to her voice, and he cautiously opened his eyes to look. The dog's claws skittered on the wooden floorboards of the room as he quickly stopped, his ears dropping as his tail went down between his back legs.

Mouse's eyes looked past the giant beast to the woman…. No, this was a lady. She was dressed in a serving girl's uniform, but even with the apron she had the look of lady. Most serving girls he'd seen, the ones who had given him a clip round the ear for stealing from their kitchens, had seemed bowed and aged by their work. Even the angry defiant ones who gave him a real clout didn't have the same tall, elegant, sternness of this lady as she commanded the dog to go and lie down. But as he took in her pretty face and her stunning blue eyes he was also reminded of the Maiden, who he rarely spoke to because there was no reason that She would be interested in a little Mouse.

"Are you okay?" She walked over to him, offering him a graceful hand to pull himself up with. He was ashamed to hold it with one of his grubby paws, but she insisted as he hesitated. He watched the dog warily as he slunk to a corner and sat down in a pile of wood shavings and chips. He nodded mutely, still staring wide eyed at the beast. Half its muzzle was marked with burns, but it watched him steadily with intelligent grey eyes.

She turned to the dog again. "You and I will talk later!" the dog turned away to stare at the wall and rested his muzzle on his front paws.

"I'm sorry! The food and the coins… I'm sorry, they're gone! I'm so sorry! Will the Patchwork Knight be angry…?" He tried not to sniff, but there were prickles in his eyes.

"Do not fret about that. Who gave you that black eye?!"

"Don't matter." He sniffed away a drip from his nose, trying not to wipe it on his sleeve as he would have done normally, if she hadn't been watching with those pretty eyes. "Where is he? The Knight?" He looked quickly around the room, taking in the pieces of armour and the patchwork cloak that rested at the end of the bed.

"He had business elsewhere…" She was lying. And she was nowhere near as good at it as him. The Knight's clothes were here. Unless he was walking about naked 'elsewhere'. There was a sudden sadness to the lady, and he didn't want to upset her, so he just nodded mutely. She was looking at him sadly too.

"Are you okay, m'lady?"

"I have a little brother… he's about your age. I have not seen him in a long time. Nor my other brothers, or my sister."

He hopped up on the bed, swinging his legs without thinking about it. The scab on his right knee was tempting but he fought the urge to pick at it in front of her.

"Where is he m'lady? Where's your family?"

"I'm no lady…"

He shrugged. She was, but if she wanted to play the lying game again he'd let her.

"They are at home, all of them. All of them are safe and sound at home." She was lying again, and he was sad for her.

"You travelling with the Knight?"

"…Yes. In a way…" She was hesitant, trying to come up with some story he thought. She sat beside him on the bed, and for a moment he was reminded of his mother. She'd comb his hair and sing to him. He wondered if this lady would sing to him.

"Can I come with you?" He looked up at her with wide eyes, whispering in his mind to the Mother, asking Her to be this lady, just for a little while.

"I don't know…" Her eyes drifted back to the dog in the corner. He was watching, but Mouse didn't know what she expected him to do. Dog looked away and buried his nose in his paws. Mouse got the strangest feeling that Dog was still sulking after his telling off. Mouse knew the best way to deal with a telling off was to apologise loudly, even if you were probably going to do it again. Dog needed to learn that.

"I could squire for the Knight! Or I could collect coins as the bird is singing!"

He saw one of her hands drift to a saddle bag on the bed, and get out an antler horn comb.

"That hair is a mess!" She started to comb out his tangled mop of hair with it, a look of concentration on her face.

Mouse prayed with all his heart, Mother, please mother… let her say yes.

***

SANSA

The Bird, the Mouse and the Dog walked together down a crooked moonlit street. Sansa thought it sounded rather like the start of one of those awful jokes Ser Dontos told, before Joffrey would pelt him with whatever was at hand. But it was not a joke, it was a true tale. The Bird, the Mouse and the Dog walked together watched by the moon. Sansa was still unsure that this was a wise move, but she refused to let Mouse go out on his own again to replace the food he'd had taken from him. And if she went with him, then the dog came too, even if he slunk along at her side, head down and tail still between his back legs. She wondered if in this form her reprimand had had more impact. He had said she was his master now, and instinctively she had reached for memories of her mother's way of telling off her children and her father's way with the hounds of Winterfell.

Bad dog, bad dog, the words echoed in her mind. But he wasn't a dog. It was the man who had been angry, who'd carried that anger with him into the dog. Sandor always carried anger with him it seemed, and she prayed to the old gods and the new that there would be a way she could help him lay down that burden. But whenever she tried to help him it seemed she made things worse. Trying to kiss him to ease his change had only made him mad. She had thought… she had thought he might want to kiss her again. Men were a puzzle she felt she was not old enough to understand. And Sandor was more a puzzle than most.

They reached the small back alley tavern that Mouse had assured her was ignored by Maesters, even the less demanding novices. But just because the Smiling Brothers were unlikely to be found here, that did not mean that their plan was without danger. Already on their way here a man had approached them, barely looking at Mouse as he had pushed him aside, and had made gruff remarks to Sansa… about the painful and disgusting things he would do to her. He would walk oddly for the next few days until the swelling went down she thought, but the dog had not broken the skin which showed remarkable restraint on his part. She had reached for her hidden knife even before the dog had leapt at him, and she had not thought about that kind of restraint.

The tavern was dark and smelled oddly of smoked hams. Sansa could see why even the poorer Maesters avoided it. She and Mouse took seats in a shadowy corner, the dog sitting at attention by her side. A serving girl with a sour look on her face and grease in her hair stumbled over and Sansa was glad that she had changed from her own serving uniform into one of the travelling dresses. Although, Mouse had warned her that there was only one type of woman who would frequent a tavern in this part of town, and at this time of night. Even if she dressed plainly, there would be those who would assume.

"Bit young fer this line o'work int he?" The woman sneered as she pushed a ratty cloth over their table.

"That's none of yer… bloody… business!" Cursing came unnaturally to Sansa, and she thought she felt the dog's sides shaking as he did that odd huffing dog laugh.

The woman turned up her nose. "We don't get many of your type in here girl."

"Worried about me stealing yer business?" She tried hard to round out the preciseness of how she usually spoke and tried to remember all of the times Septa Mordane had corrected her grammar, to do the opposite.

"Bitch" Hissed the woman and went off.

"But… but… we want food!" Mouse looked panicked.

"She'll be back sweetling. We have coin."

Sansa was right of course, and they ordered the best that the tavern could offer. Which was not much admittedly, but it sufficed. And after they had all eaten their fill Sansa tried hard not to laugh as Mouse burped and squeeked out an apology. The dog was cracking bones between his back teeth and Sansa felt oddly content as she supped on a cup of wine and water.

That happiness was broken by the arrival of three men. They were drunk, wearing swords and leering at her as soon as they spotted her in the corner. The dog's fur rose on his back and he let out a deep growl.

"Time to go Mouse." She whispered to the boy and he nodded mutely.

"Don't leave so soon, pretty lady. Oh, I don't think your dog likes me." The Hound was standing now, teeth bared at the leader of the three, a muscular man with a tattoo of naked woman on his shoulder. He smiled a gapped tooth shark's smile and sat at the nearest table to them, leaning over towards her.

"Leave us be."

The second and third man looked almost familiar, both with cropped short hair and hawk like noses on lined faces. Then she remembered the riot in Kings Landing, and the men who had attacked her. It wasn't their features, it was the looks on their faces that she remembered. With her right hand she pulled the small sharp knife from where it lay in her bodice.

"Oh look, the girl's got a knife. Well, so do I." The first man pulled a larger dagger from his belt. Sansa looked around for the serving woman, anyone, but the tavern had cleared. The dog's growl was getting louder but the men seemed unconcerned. One was even picking at his shark's teeth with a splinter. Sansa's panic grew and she found it hard to breath.

It was then that Mouse pointed silently at the shadows on the wall, eyes two wide pools of fear. Sansa looked quickly, unwilling to look away from the men. The shadows were moving.

No, no they weren't shadows… it was smoke and it was coming from her. Was she changing again?! She looked down at her hands, the empty one and the one holding the knife. They were whole. But still the smoke undulated behind her, and now the men were noticing. They did not notice for long, as tendrils wrapped themselves around them and started… squeezing.

Sansa closed her eyes, feeling something dark caressing her on the inside, warming her as the wine had done. Unbidden, her body moved, dancing slightly with the smoke. The dog was barking, three for danger, over and over again. But she was in the embrace of the shadow and the tavern seemed so far away.

Until he bit her hand and it came crashing back around her.

The choking men fell to the floor as the smoke dissipated, gasping for breath. Mouse grabbed her bloodied hand and the three of them ran from the tavern.

***

SANDOR

He'd woken before both of them and had let his change take him in a dank alleyway at the back of the falling down building. When he crept back into their rented room the boy and Sansa were still sleeping on the woodworm eaten bed. Mouse was tucked into the smallest shape he could make, but had still somehow managed to pull all the threadbare sheets over himself. Sansa lay on her back, both arms up in surrender, a halo of dark hair around her pale face, dark shadows under her eyes. One hand was ineptly bandaged with strips torn from her purple Vallen apron. Mouse had helped her do it before they had curled up on the bed, exhausted. But there had been no place on the bed for Sandor, so he'd passed the night lying up on the floorboards, his nose inches from dust and dirt, and the inquisitive spiders that travelled across the floors in the night.

There was no place in her bed for him. Mouse had been quick to stake his claim to the bed, and Sansa had lain next to him, stroking his hair and thinking of her littlest brother no doubt. Bran? No, that was the cripple… the other one. The older brothers had made more mark on Sandor, if only because he'd spent a moment thinking out how he'd take them in a fight. The other Stark girl… the one who had stared at him in his armour all wide eyed and excited… the one who'd sobbed when he'd killed the butcher's boy… Arya. He remembered her name. But the youngest Stark boy, the one of an age with Mouse, that one's name escaped him. Sansa had taken to Mouse as though he was her brother, and she was sure to want him to come with them. The boy was too young for this road, it was far too dangerous. And besides, he didn't need a fucking squire! He was no bloody knight, whatever embroidered stories Mouse told…

His mind returned to the same thought again. There was no place in her bed for him. And there was no place by her side if he couldn't control his rages. He'd always held them in check before, bringing out the beast in him when he fought, smashing it into men with his sword and shield. But when he'd gone for the boy… and before, when he'd turned on Sansa, it had taken him fully. There was something red and bloody growing in him. And he thought that it was growing in Sansa too.

He leant back into the shadows, still watching her gentle breaths. The girl had… shit, he didn't even know how to describe what she'd done back at the tavern. Magic? Fuck that. He understood iron and steel, not smoke and magic. They needed to go to see Mouse's Maester Bruth today. He needed answers.

Sansa stirred and looked up at him. He placed a finger to his lips and she silently rose from the bed to come closer.

"Let me see" he whispered, gesturing to her hand, and she held it up to him. He unwrapped it carefully, but it was already near healed. Now only small pink marks showed where the dog's teeth had broken the skin.

"I would have killed them, had you not…" She started, whispering as well.

"Dogs bite their masters, I told you once lass."

"No, it was not like that. You stopped me. Thank you."

He was having to lean forward to hear her whispers, and he suddenly realised how close they had become. The dark curtain of her hair had fallen forward, and his lips were inches away from where it parted at the top of her head. And he still held her hand in her palm. He let go quickly and moved back from her.

"And you stopped me, when the boy… when I… Consider the debt paid." He looked away from her eyes awkwardly. Gods damn those Tully blue eyes!

"Will we see Mouse's Maester today?"

"Aye lass… we'll see him. And he'll tell us how break this damned thing… or I'll break his neck."

Sansa drew back from him, shock on her face. Good, it was past time for hard truths.

He gestured at the sleeping Mouse. "We can't take him with us if we leave Oldtown. You know that, don't you?" Sandor's voice was as hard and cold as he could make it. He knew it had to be. "Once this is over, once this Maester tells us how to fix this fucking mess, he goes his own way. We all do once it's over."

But then she fixed those eyes on him again, locking his to hers, and there was the same steel in them he'd seen when she'd shouted at the dog.

"Neither of you are leaving me. You hear me. Curse or no curse, you stay with me."

"That's not what I said, girl…"

"Good. But now you know it. You stay with me. Swear it."

Then he saw the smoke, emerging from her hair and rolling around her like snakes in the grass. Some of it twisted and rolled towards him and he recoiled, eyes wide in fear.

"Sansa!"

She closed her eyes and the smoke fell away suddenly. When she reopened them there were tears in the corners of her eyes. And then one word whispered from her lips, sweetly and quietly and he had no defence against it. Or her.

"Please."

He slowly knelt before her, placing his right fist over his heart, his other hand grasping his dagger.

"I swear it… my Lady. By the old gods and the new, I swear it."

"Wow! And I thought I had some good stories!"

They turned as one to see Mouse standing by the bed, his hair sticking up on one side, creases from the sheets marring his face and his eyes wide and staring.

Sansa nodded, smiling warmly at the boy. Then the smoke returned; completing her change as Mouse watched in awe, his mouth dropping open. She fluttered to her high perch.

"This story is definitely going to bring in the coin!"

"Hush boy!" He snarled at him, "You keep your mouth shut!"

Mouse mimed sowing his lips closed, but his smile couldn't be contained. Sandor rolled his eyes.

"Well, if squire you be now, you'd best get our gear in order. And be quick about it, or else I'll clip you 'round the ear!"

"Yes, mi'lord!"


	11. Chapter 11

SANDOR

"There is simply NO such thing as magic!"

Sandor tried to keep the rage under control, but the fat man had been annoying him since they'd arrived in his stale smelling, cluttered and dark study. First he'd almost refused them entrance, even after they had waited hours in the main hall of the Citadel, on edge every time a Maester or novice looked their way. When finally his novice, Bartelmew, had led them to the tiny study down a maze of corridors the whale-man Bruth had tried to turn them away, scoffing at Sandor's patchwork cloak and dismissing him as a tale teller and not fit for his bloody time. It had gotten worse when Mouse had convinced him to at least hear them out, and Sandor had stumbled through his retelling of their journey so far, of Heyrick and the curse, of the novice and the Smiling Brothers. Bruth had squinted at him down a bulbous red nose, wart and all, and laughed aloud, calling him a liar, and a bad storyteller at that. Mouse had stood up for them, but his version of the transformation of the lady into the bird carried no more weight with this man who had enough of his own.

"You see this?! You see this link? Its Valyrian Steel… that means I have studied the higher mysteries. And they are all bunkum!"

Sandor was tempted to grab the slob's chain and yank it hard around his neck till the rest of his face matched that red nose.

"Can't say I believed in it either Maester… but that were before-"

"Belief? Belief?!" The man was indeed turning red of face on his own. "It isn't about belief you ignorant street entertainer. The new thought says that there are only real objective facts that can be measured and tested. If you believe in magic, you might as well believe in fairy dust and dragons-"

Bartelmew coughed and Bruth glared at him. "Stories from sun stroke afflicted sailors crossing the narrow sea do not mean that there are dragons in the world again Bartelmew. You listen to gossip too damn much for a Maester in training!"

Bartelmew nodded and returned to the papers he was desperately trying to sort before the entire stack fell down, as others clearly had. Sandor had been cautious of the young novice, he was a non-descript kind of lad, almost of a face with the other Smiling Brothers he'd seen so far, but a vivid scar running along the boy's jawline suggested he wasn't one of them. Could he only trust the fat, the ugly and the scarred from now on? Perhaps women also since he had not met a Smiling Sister yet… He turned back to the frustrating task at hand.

"Maester Bruth. I could demonstrate how the bird understands us…"

"Your mummer's tricks do not interest me!"

"Or we could wait until the sun sets to see the change happen!"

"I do not have the time to spend with you fools. I have important research to undertake. Mouse, do not think to return here for errands again. Good day!" He gestured to Bartelmew and the younger man ushered them out.

Bartelmew walked ahead, his steady quiet steps drowned out by the heavy tread of the Patchwork Knight's boots and the scampering feet of Mouse. Sandor was fuming and didn't immediately notice that they were not heading back through the same dusty old corridors until Bartelmew opened a door for them with a large iron key and they entered what appeared to be a store room. Sandor reached for his dagger and growled.

"Be calm Ser." Bartelmew pulled out chairs from around a simple oak table and quickly lit a low candle in the middle of the table with a tinder box he drew from his robes. "Sit… please."

Sandor reluctantly sat, joined by Mouse. The bird flew to a high shelf above them, watching with a wary eye.

"Maester Bruth sends his apologies." Bartelmew sat also and steepled his long thin fingers. "It was not possible for him to speak freely earlier. And you took a great risk in sharing your story with him. He has done what he can to make himself un-notable in the Citadel. Acquiring a lowly study in a poor position, antagonising the other Maesters, and so forth. But he still cannot be sure that the ones you call the Smiling Brothers are not watching him."

"And he called me a mummer!"

"Yes. Bruth has outwardly signed up to the school of the new thought, but his studies in the higher mysteries continue. His attacks upon me were a part of that disguise. I must play the naïve fool who believes in magic so that he can outwardly be the man you met today."

"But can he bloody well help us!?"

"I know all the texts that Maester Bruth has to hand. There is nothing in them about a curse such as yours. From your tale we can only deduce that the false Septon Heyrick created something new. Which fits with your account of the novice and what he said of 'shaping'. We know this so far. These brothers, they gift their power to other brothers on their deaths. It cannot be taken, only given, so they do not murder each other for this power. Heyrick 'gifted' it to you, but formed it into the curse. Others, such as the novice you spoke of, will want this 'gift' back. And it sounds as though this is only possible through your deaths."

"And when the girl has used the smoke, as she did when she attacked those men?"

"That is unusual. Perhaps she has some of the same shaping ability as Heyrick. Or she is learning how to do so. Perhaps you both will. Are there any of her blood, or yours, who can do such things?"

"Before this day I thought no man could do such things."

"Magic is out there mi'lord. The warlocks of Qarth. The priests of the red god. The maegi. Others besides. They all call it different things. For some it is the gift of the gods, for others, the gift of demons. Some gods are new, some are old. The return of the dragons has awoken many of the sleeping powers, but these Smiling Brothers…. We fear they have been awake for a very long time."

Sandor fought the urge to spit. "Give me a sword and a man to kill. That I understand. Not fucking warlocks and maggies…"

"Maegi."

"Fuck that. I'm not a novice for you to teach, boy!"

"What I am telling you might save your life one day."

"What do we do? Where do we go?"

"Qarth. Braavos. Asshai… there are many places you could look for one who is strong enough to break this shaping."

"But not here."

"But not here."

Sandor got up quickly and the bird flew to his shoulder. "The novice was right; it's a long, long road we travel. Come Mouse."

The large knight and his tiny squire walked out of the shadows of the room into the grey of the corridor, watched by Bartelmew. And then the Maester in training turned to look at the candle and the small flame winked out.

***

There was a wind picking up, running small waves against the harbour wall as Sandor tried to wait patiently for his turn to speak with the harbour master. He didn't like the grey sky, nor the way the ships were beginning to bob and dip at their moorings. Mouse seemed to share his mood and fidgeted by his side, almost daring to get beneath the patchwork cloak, but knowing better. Stranger too was unsettled, dancing from hoof to hoof. Only the bird seemed calm, but in this shape her attitude was hard to be sure of.

The harbour master's attitude towards the large man in the patchwork cloak and the small boy in rags was far easier to gauge.

"Where you be heading?" His tone was curt, rude even. And Sandor bristled, but he held the red anger in check.

"Where are the ships going?"

The Harbour Master looked up with a sneer and lifted the pile of curling parchments in front of him before letting them drop back to his table on the quay.

"There are forty two ships in dock today. Where does 'mi'lord' care to go?" Sarcasm dripped from the man's thin mouth. At least the sallow skinned git was as ugly as sin, with a memorable, and ridiculous, moustache. On their way to collect Stranger from the northern stables Sandor had scanned the crowds for ordinary looking men of no note and had seen Smiling Brothers everywhere… in his mind at least. If there truly had been as many as he thought he had seen they would be dead by now a thousand times over.

"Across the Narrow Sea."

"Oh that really 'narrows' it down!"

Sandor raised an eyebrow at the fucking terrible pun.

"Pentos? Myr? Braavos?"

"Braavos." He grasped onto the one name he remembered Bruth suggesting.

The harbour master muttered and sorted through the papers. "There's a Braavosi salt trader heading back there, passing through Saltpans on its way. The Titan's Daughter. Look by the red seven painted on the wall."

The Harbour Master looked down. "Next."

"Wait. Does it have cabins?"

He looked up again with a dark scowl on his face. "Ask the captain. I'm not here to arrange your little pleasure cruise across the sea. Next!"

Sandor pulled on Stranger's bridle and quickly made his way out on the quayside, noting the variety of ships as he went, counting and checking the colours of the numbers, with the boy near running to keep up with the man and the horse.

Suddenly the Hound turned and grabbed the dark curly haired man who had been following them. The bird on Sandor's shoulder dramatically increased the volume of the chirps that had been only for his ear until then. Three for danger. He drew his dagger quickly.

"What's this?!"

"A thousand apologies mi'lord." The short man bowed. "I only overheard you with the Harbour Master and wanted to offer my ship's hospitality to you."

"What's wrong with the Titan's Daughter?"

"A good craft. If you're a pile of salt. But the Courtesan's Wish heads to Bravos with comfortable cabins and a well-stocked hold for your fine horse."

"Aye, and what will the Courtesan's Wish cost me?" His hand drifted to the purse at his belt. What remained of their coin did not make it hang heavy.

"The Courtesan carries special cargoes my lord. Cargoes that might be of interest to others on the Summer and Narrow Seas. Another sword on board might be beneficial. And a Maester of our acquaintance suggested you might be that sword. So you see, I am sure that we can come to an arrangement on the cost."

"Bruth…" Sandor whispered the name under his breath and the Braavosi lay a finger to his lips. The Hound smiled grimly.

"We'll need a cabin. And privacy. No one disturbs me once I go to my cabin. You can speak with the boy if needs be."

"Of course my lord." The Braavosi bowed and gestured for them to follow him. "You may call this man Riveriil Denaro."

"Oh this is so exciting!" Mouse was near skipping along now, following the two men. "By the Seven, I never thought that I would cross the seas!"

"Yes, it's bloody thrilling." Sandor's voice was flat and dark. All he saw when he thought of Essos was a hundred cities a hundred more times more dangerous than Kings Landing. Men with strange tongues and stranger plans. Dark magics… they had plenty enough here, but there was more of that on that strange land. Protecting Sansa would be harder than ever. The bird, as though sensing his disquiet, started to sing and the Braavosi smiled, showing off a shining gold tooth.

"Aaah, the courtesans of Bravos will be delighted by your pet."

"Just as long as the men of Braavos leave her alone…"

Riverill laughed heartily. "You are a strange man my lord. What would the Bravos want with a songbird?"

He stopped then, by an ornately carved ship and gestured with a sweeping hand.

"The Courtesan's Wish"

"What does she wish for?"

"This one wishes for good winds and a safe crossing. The Courtesan who provided the money to buy this ship… well, she wishes for other things."

Sandor let the enigmatic comment pass, and concentrated on urging Stranger up the gangplank and onto the ship, trying to calm his shaking flanks and panicking eyes. The bird alighted on Stranger's back, and he stilled suddenly.

"Soft hearted beast" Sandor tutted and the four of them boarded the ship.

***

SANSA

The aft cabin Riveriil had brought them to was very basic, but far cleaner than their room in the Oldtown slums had been. In comparison to that hole it felt very luxurious. In particular Sansa was pleased to see a large feather bed with cotton sheets taking up most of the space in the cabin. They were even above the waterline so there were two small porthole windows letting in a little light, gauzy blue-grey silks floating over them. Otherwise the room was near bare, just a washstand with an unpainted white basin and water jug, and on the other side of the bed a tall chest of drawers, most of which were open and empty, but which made a good high perch for Sansa in her current shape.

They'd left Stranger in the hold below, surrounded by carefully packed crates and barrels. Mouse had asked to stay with the horse, whose eyes still rolled occasionally at the feel of the water below the boards of the ship and below his hooves. The boy had taken to the horse, and did not want to leave him until he settled. But Riveriil had promised him a tour of the ship, once he was happy that Stranger was calm, and Mouse's eyes had lit up with the thought of that. No doubt they'd find him half way up the mast at some point. Sansa prayed he'd not be that foolish… thoughts of Bran on her mind suddenly.

After showing Sandor to the cabin the small Braavosi had bowed low and made his excuses. Sandor had grunted in minor appreciation of the man's courtesies, and of the cabin too. Once Riveriil was gone, he shrugged and twisted his way out of his armour and made his way to the wash basin. Sansa watched as he lifted his dull grey tunic up over his head and set about washing away the dirt and dust of Oldtown from his bare torso. He filled the basin from the jug, but only after sniffing suspiciously at the water. He muttered something about "Bloody Braavos", but still he poured it in, before wringing out the cloth that had been left there and wiping it over his face and chest, before briskly rubbing under his arms and across the back of his neck.

Sansa thought that he might have forgotten her presence, or perhaps he'd grown so used to the bird, he'd forgotten the girl. But she had never seen him so uncaring about her gaze upon him. True, he'd changed from the dog before her, and she had averted her eyes from his nakedness, but he had never stood so boldly as he revealed his body. And as he lay himself down on the bed, a slight sigh coming from his lips at the softness of it after so many hard places to sleep, she was able to see all of him, from the top of his breeches upwards.

She still remembered the scars she had seen on his back that morning when she'd awoken to him laying down in the bed next to her, at the inn on the road between Highgarden and Oldtown. But now she could see his chest clearly, and not in the usual half-light that marked their time together as man and woman.

He had closed his eyes, his breath slowing as he drifted slowly into sleep. His mouth eased from its usual cruel, sharp line, but the crease between his dark eyebrows remained. She suddenly yearned to smooth away that deep line with her fingers, but also to erase whatever had caused it in the first place.

She felt entranced by the sight of him sleeping there, the rhythm of his breaths lulling her into what felt like a half sleep. She drowsily watched the slow rise and fall of his chest and took in the broadness of it, the muscles, the scars, the hair…

So much hair… It massed darkly on his muscles and formed a trail… downwards. She wondered, was it coarse and rough as he could be? Or, surprisingly soft? She imagined walking to the bed, her bare feet making no sound on the wooden boards of the ship. She would gently lay herself next to him, fitting herself into the space between his arm and his body, and rest her head under his chin, where she would fit perfectly. Naturally. She would then feel the rise fall of his breath and the thunder of his heart beneath her ear. She would bring up her hand and trace her fingers across scars, fingertips trailing through that dark hair. At first he might start at her unexpected presence, but he'd smile, whisper 'Little Bird' to her, and slowly stroke her hair as it lay over him like flowing red silk, and then he'd return to the depths of his sleep after pulling her closer.

She would feel safe there, nestling against him. He was so large how could she not? She thought back for a moment to the knights she'd yearned for before she knew what the lie about them was. Ser Loras, fair of hair, lithe and dressed up in shining armour and brocade. Could she have felt safe against his chest? Really, he was not that much bigger than she was!

Sandor stirred slightly in his sleep as though something had disturbed him. And in her mind Sansa urged him to sleep. Sleep… sleep and dream, she whispered silently. She had… enjoyed… the daydream of touching him, so she returned to it. Fingertips on his chest, running through hair and down to the where the muscles of his stomach lay. She imagined the warmth of his chest on her face, her lips so close to his skin. What would it feel like to turn her head slightly and place her lips against that warmth? When she had daydreamed of knights she had never thought to place kisses anywhere but on their lips. After they had won a tourney or defeated a dread enemy of course. A chaste kiss for a triumphant, brave knight. But now… now she imagined what it would be like to place a kiss on his body. A kiss for the man who had saved her times over, and had never wanted the vow of knighthood, but had vowed himself to her all the same.

Maybe more than one kiss. Maybe she would trail kisses on his chest like petals falling from a flower. Her hand would trace circles on him before holding his side, gently pulling herself to lie over him.

Sandor stirred again, and she thought she heard another sigh from his lips.

But the image remained in her head, of her hair falling like a curtain over him as she moved across him, laying kisses on his chest and stomach. Sansa knew that there were other things a woman might do… things that other girls had hinted at, but she could not imagine them. Her idea of laying with a man was a dark and painful thought, a mix of rumours and whispered suggestions of how horrible her wedding night would be. That thought pushed her daydream of kisses aside… and for a moment she remembered the night he had come for her, when the night was green from the wildfire on Blackwater Bay. The way he'd lain on her, the weight of him. So she imagined that, the pressure of him on her, his mouth seeking hers. But the time he had kissed her, it had not been horrible but gentle and giving. That kiss returned in her mind, the way he'd breathed into her. And it merged with the kiss that she'd given him. Inept as it had been, it had sparked something in her… kiss upon kiss, giving and taking.

On the bed Sandor shifted again, a moan released from his mouth. Sansa started, suddenly aware that she wasn't on the bed with him, aware that she was still the bird. His eyes opened and he quickly drew the sheets across his body, covering his legs and waist. Sansa was confused, he'd been wearing his breeches, what was he ashamed of?

He sat up, confused and oddly flushed of face. "I dreamt… I dreamt…" He shook his head, hair falling down over his face. "Don't matter little bird."

Had it been just her daydream? Or had she… had she sent it to him somehow? Had he dreamed as she had? Was this another part of the power that they carried, the curse? Oh gods, what if he realised she had been thinking of him like that?

Then another thought occurred. What if she could do it again?

***

SANDOR

Seven fucking hells! He'd had dreams of women before, of course. Memories of whores and serving girls that merged in his sleep into faceless women touching him. He'd had them since he was young, before he even truly knew how his face would make the ones he wanted turn away from him. But nothing before had been like the dream that had visited him as he dozed on the bed in the cabin. It had felt so… real. The sensation of Sansa lying down on the bed beside him, her slight weight making the mattress dip and shift underneath him. The feel of the fall of her long hair on his chest, the agonising sensation as those kisses drifted slowly downwards… he'd woken up confused and aroused and had quickly covered himself, remembering the bird watching him.

And the part that remained with him as the details started to blur into each other, as he went about dressing and fussing with their packs, was that she had come to him willingly, padding over to their bed on her bare feet. The kiss she had given him on the road had been out of pity for his change and the painful fire it brought him. The kiss he had given her had been about his frustration. But in the dream… seven fucking hells!

He half hoped Mouse would return from his tour before the smoke came and she changed, just so that he could hide behind practical tasks and the boy's chattering. He wasn't sure he could be alone with her at this moment.

But the gods, as ever, were not on his side.

After the smoke had faded he made a show of telling her about the washbasin and the jug of water, perfumed strongly in the Braavosi way. He turned to it so as not to look at her, but also to cover the confusion that passed over his face as he realised that the long red hair in his dream was long gone and had only been a part of his desires… He coughed and spoke gruffly, facing away from her.

"You can wash if you wish. I'll go up on deck and out of yer way…" He risked a look back at her, only to find that she couldn't meet his eyes, and was busying herself on the bed with scraps of material and her sewing things that she must have grabbed quickly from their packs.

"I thought I would make Mouse's wooden knight his cloak now…" She almost mumbled the words, looking down intently at the greens and purples of the scraps. What the…? She was well beyond looking away from his scars. What fears she'd had of him were gone… surely?

But that flush on her face…? That wasn't bloody fear!

"Sansa…" He turned back to her fully. The girl still looked down intently, but tears were forming at her eyes.

"I'm sorry! I didn't know I could do that!" She looked up, her face stricken and red with embarrassment.

He was stunned into silence for a moment. She'd done it? She'd sent him that dream?!

"I didn't mean to… I'm sorry!"

Part of him wanted to laugh darkly at the grief on her face. Another part wanted to rage because the thought of him like that horrified her. And another part, a quiet, still voice in the fury of his mind thought of what she had done and wanted her to try again. And to think of other dreams for them…

He sat down heavily on the bed opposite her and ran his hand over his beard, considering what to say next. A hundred mean words sprang to mind, the kind of comments he had always made to her. He could snap and growl at her and make sure she never reached into his head like that again. He could snarl and mock her for her daydreams, in turn mocking himself for being the subject of them. But none of that was really what he wanted.

"Do you… do you really look at me like that?" He asked quietly.

She twisted a piece of material in her hands.

"I thought… when you kissed me, it was for my change only… to make it easier." He was unused to speaking soft words and he stumbled over them. "Was it… was it for you too?"

"Why did you kiss me?"

"That ain't fair girl… I asked my bloody question first!"

She laughed then, the sweet sound breaking the tension that stretched between them for a moment. He reached for her, cupping her face with his sword hand. The contrast between her soft skin and the calloused hand almost hurt him. But she pushed her face into the caress and brought her own hand up to cup his hand as well. The pain came again… bugger it all, it was the start of his change! He groaned as the first fires spread through his bones and closed his eyes in pain.

Then her lips were on his. She did not move, perhaps wasn't sure how to. But he pushed her lips with his own and she opened her mouth hesitantly. He guided her through the kiss, moving the hand on her face to her waist to draw her closer to him for a deeper kiss. She seemed surprised at the feel of his tongue, but he didn't force it at her, taking his time and running his hand over her waist as they kissed. She moaned into his mouth and it took all of his self-control not to make his kiss more demanding. Gods damn him, he wanted to have all of her, but even this kiss felt like the end of him.

A shout from outside the cabin broke the silence and they pulled away from each other. She rested a hand on her lips, feeling the swell of them after his had gently bruised them. The ship rocked as they felt it pull away from the harbour side.

"Your change…?"

"It's still coming… But was that why you kissed me? Tell me true."

"No." The word was whispered but he heard it loudly, almost as loudly as he heard his heartbeat in his ears. "No, I kissed you because I wished to kiss you." Red flushed across her cheeks again.

He knew he had no time left, and he fought against the change even as it took him. But this time the fire could not even touch him.

***

SANSA

It started a mere hour out of the docks of Oldtown. At first Mouse was just quieter than usual, which was remarkable because the boy was never quiet unless Sandor gave him a 'look', and then he held his tongue. But then the boy started to look a bit pale. And then a bit green. Then what little food he held in his stomach made its way over the side of the ship into the rolling waves in the dark. Sansa was glad that she had not been around to see that part happen. She and the dog had been in the cabin, somehow negotiating the awkwardness of being in the same room together, after their kissing, when one of them was no longer a man. They'd settled on the dog standing guard by the door as she carefully stitched the wooden Patchwork Knight's cloak and his lady's dress by the light of a stumpy candle.

But Riveriil sent the boy on his way back to the cabin below deck when it was clear nothing more was coming out of him for now, and Sansa opened the door to a bedraggled, wretched creature, with tears in his eyes and vomit on his tunic. She swept him in and directed him to the bed, quickly rinsing the cloth to wipe his face and to cool his forehead. None of them had actually sailed before. Sandor, she was sure, had a strong constitution. She was already thanking the gods that she hadn't been likewise afflicted. But Mouse… he suffered badly.

For the next few days they settled into an unhappy routine as Oldtown's coastline slowly vanished behind them. At night she would comfort him, singing him the hymns of the Seven she could remember while she held out the basin for him. During the day Sandor tried to get him up on deck, where he thought the fresh air would help him. After the second round of vomit landed on his boots, Sandor decided to keep the boy in the cabin during the day as well, and struggled to care for him as Sansa had done.

The bird watched him with curiosity. He was not usually good at holding in his impatience, but although he was not as mothering as Sansa, who he'd taken to calling a mother hen… another sign of that impatience… he did not shout at the boy. Sandor told Mouse stories of his campaigns, but this time making some stories up when the boy seemed bored at the lack of giants and dragons.

But the cabin was too small for both the smell of Mouse's sea sickness and a dog and woman who had to hide their presence on the ship. Sansa felt stretched and tense, and deeply unhappy with this new cage. It did not help that the few times Sandor had left the boy with the captain and made an excuse to return to the cabin for a nap and to… dream… she had not been able to send him anything. Not anything… good… at least.

He could not possibly be happy with the mere kisses she'd given him before, so she tried to imagine how it would be if they lay together… properly. She could go only so far. She could only imagine what she had been told about her wedding night. She could only imagine a dark threatening shape moving about in her room. And what she felt was confusion, fear and… pain.

Sandor would wake from those naps with a dark look upon his face and would leave immediately to go above deck. He would never speak to her about it, but she knew she must be disappointing him.

Finally Mouse started chattering again, and soon he was wrapping his mouth around Braavosi dried and spiced meats while trying to talk at the same time. And one evening, just before her change, Sandor sent him to check on Stranger and the boy near ran to the hold, his sea legs finally improved.

As she drifted back into her woman's shape Sandor sat on the bed and patted his knee, giving her a look that could only be described as being full of intentions.

"Come sit here, girl."

He seemed to realise as soon as he said it that his words had been wrong. But she could not hold back the unhappiness anymore and it came out in her face as rage.

"I am not some… some… wench!" She stood tall and curled her hands into fists at her side.

She expected him to return with fire of his own. But he sat there silently for a moment before uncurling himself to his full height, to stand in front of her. He was like some great statue, maybe like the Titan of Bravos himself. Implacable, hard, silent. She wanted to beat her fists against his broad chest and tell him how unhappy she had been the last few days. How she'd wanted to send him the dreams he wanted, but she had no experience of that. How she couldn't even imagine being with him… like that. How she could never be with him like that. Duty, duty, duty… she wanted him to know that the words boomed in her head when she tried to think of being with him. Duty to her family, duty to her brother's campaign in the North, duty to her future husband… her duty to be a maiden for him on their wedding night.

She looked up at him, all the thoughts racing through her mind, and stared into the dark shadows of his eyes.

"My lady."

He spoke so quietly she barely heard him, but the deepness of his voice was like water on the fire of her anger, and a balm for her sadness.

"No. You are no wench, and I shouldn't have tried to treat you as one. But wenches, and whores, are all I've known. I've no experience of a woman who wasn't a whore, who didn't want paying. In one way or another. The first time… when you came to me willingly. No one's ever done that before. So if you can't dream with me of how a man is with a woman because you've no experience of that… and you can't do it for real… Then send me your memories. Show me Winterfell through your eyes. Show me yer brothers and yer sister. Show me what I can't imagine. Show me what I don't have experience of…"

It was perhaps the most she had heard him speak at one time. And she could not hold herself back. She flew into his arms, and lay her head against the same chest she had wanted to beat her fists against moments before.

"I felt your fear girl. Dreamt it as though it were me. I wanted to give you some lightness, girl. That's all, it weren't nothing more than that. And a knee aint a bad place to sit if you want to kiss someone. Just so you know."

He gently raised her chin with his fingertips, and laid his lips against hers. She knew her cheeks were wet with tears, and feared her nose was already red and her skin blotchy. But at that moment all she wanted was to sit on his knee and have him look at her. And maybe… maybe slowly unlace the back of her dress so it would loosen and drop down a little at the front…

He pulled away from her suddenly and she looked up at him, confused.

"That weren't my thought!" He jumped, surprised.

A triumphant smile grew on her lips as she realised that she'd sent the idea to him, and not as a dream.

"So, laces and unlacing is it?" He smiled back, a predator's smile but with a warmth that made her feel hot and nervous. She nodded and he started to reach for the back of her dress. But their time together was coming to an end already, and his hand tensed into a fist with the pain, and he could do nothing with it.

"Damn this all to the Seven hells!" He shouted, roaring out the words. "There aint no time to do this right! One thing you need to know girl… I would take my time with you if I ever have the chance."

It sounded like a threat, but Sansa shivered at the thought. He groaned, and turned away, his change upon him.

***

KAI

The sending came as he slept in the whore's bed. He found himself in Ektor's study in the Red Keep. It was a cramped room, an insult to the man from a queen who did not understand the power she had let into her castle. Ektor himself sat at his desk, his back to Kai, staring into the hearth fire that must dance across his face, his back straight, his breath deep and steady. Kai looked out of the corner of his eye at the shadows of the room. Ektor's sendings were always… colourful. Something moved there, something broken and misshapen. A woman whimpered and a twisted, blackened hand reached for him from the shadows. He knocked it away.

"The queen irritates you?"

"The queen is a flea. A short sighted, short lived creature more concerned with her sadistic brat and her immediate desires than the true destiny of this land." Ektor rose and turned to him. In his imagining Ektor wore the face he preferred and even Kai shied from it. "The sending I am giving her now is nothing compared to what I would truly do to her… Would that I could bring her to this place for real. But enough of such distractions. Where are you?"

"Oldtown. The taste of the curse is hard to follow here. There are many of our brothers in the Citadel…."

"I do hope that was not the start of an excuse…" The face twisted, and Kai could not believe it, but it became… worse.

"No. I have traced them through the city and spoken with a novice of ours who encountered them. My Lord… He says she shifted form to attack him…"

Ektor was, for the first time since Kai had met him on the streets of Lannisport, taken aback. It disturbed Kai to see his master unsettled.

"And he is to be believed?"

"He's not the smartest of our men in the Citadel… he managed to lose them… but he's not prone to fancies. I also found three sellswords stained by the curse's touch. I made Clegane take them on as swords so I could pull stones from them and make them tell their tale true… They say a red haired witch with a hellhound attacked them with magic… with smoke."

The woman starting moaning again as something in the shadows moved over her.

"This is… unexpected. I do not like the unexpected Kai. We plan everything… everything… so that the unexpected cannot happen." Ektor's face became a plain white mask, his anger buried behind it. In some ways Kai thought that was worse than the horror he'd worn before. The woman screamed.

"Has there ever been a female member of our order?"

The screaming stopped abruptly and the shape of the tortured queen vanished.

"Never. And there never shall be. It is more important than ever that you find them Kai."

"I have a sighting of them at the Citadel, and then at the docks. I believe that they did not find the help they needed here and have sailed…"

"Who did they speak to at the Citadel? Were they believed?"

"That is… hidden from me."

Ektor's room shifted and twisted with his rage, even as his face remained the same plain mask. In the shadows dark shapes twisted and rolled over each other.

"There is… more." Kai swallowed. "They have one of our potentials with them."

"Which?"

"The one who calls himself Mouse."

The room settled suddenly, and Ektor made a dismissive gesture. "I never accepted Hakken's report on the boy. He's already been spoiled for our needs by his ludicrous faith in their seven gods. I never expected him to pass the testing, and he would have made a mediocre sacrifice at best. He is no great loss if you needs kill him."

Kai bowed and the room disappeared, replaced by the blankness of his normal dreamings.

In the whore's bed he shifted and turned to return to deeper sleep, nestled in the blood drenched sheets.


	12. Chapter 12

MOUSE

"Mother, I know you most like agree with the Lady. And you're both right. I should not be doing this. Shouldn't be doing this at all. But Mother… you know how you watch over the children? Could you watch over me now and make sure I don't fall? It's an awfully long way down and the Lady would be cross if I fell. She's told me six times already she doesn't want me climbing up here. And the Patchwork Knight has told me if I make her all sad that I'll be in for a gutting, even if I survive the fall… Which sounds pretty painful Mother. Not sure I'd like that at all. Nor falling all the way back down to the deck for that matter. That's what it's called Mother, I asked the Captain for all the names of the things on the boat. He also said it's not a boat, but a ship. But I forget things when I'm scared. And Mother, I have to admit, I'm a bit scared now. They call it the Crow's Nest and I'm sure it was closer to the deck when I started. Barak the Bandana said they'd rename it the Mouse Nest if I make it. Said I had to do it when the Patchwork Knight was taking one of his naps or the big man would thrash me. He takes a lot of naps lately Mother. Is he getting old like Maester Bruth? He always took a nap after lunch. Mother, can you ask the Warrior to keep the knight young? I want him to have more adventures, so I can tell more of his stories. And if you're talking to the Warrior for me… I couldn't talk to him meself being as he don't like me much… I asked him once to kill Osric and he never did, so he must not like me… if you're talking to the Warrior for me, could you ask him to protect us on this journey? I know you'll be there for me. After all, didn't you make the Lady let me come with them…? But you aint so good with a sword, and I think we're going to need swords on this adventure. And if the Smith's listening too… could he make the Patchwork Knight some new armour, as his is kind of… old for a great hero. And if the Maiden's there, could she make the Lady smile a little more, the Knight seems to like that… oh."

He'd reached the Crow's Nest.

He rolled onto the small platform, his breath coming in short gasps. He should have saved it for the climb but the Seven preferred it when he spoke to them aloud. That's what his mother had told him once when he'd pretended to pray in his head but wasn't. But then she died. He should have prayed aloud.

But enough of that. He didn't want to think about that.

He'd climbed to the Crow's Nest, the Mouse Nest now, all by himself. Well, almost all by himself. He reached into a small silken pouch tied to a string belt at his waist and got out the wooden Patchwork Knight and his Lady. Both wore their fine clothes now; the Knight had his cloak, and the Lady had her dress. Lady Sansa… although he wasn't to use that name, not ever… the Lady had sewn them so neatly for him, so he'd had to give her a kiss on her pale cheek, and he never kissed anyone, no one, not ever.

"Do you see?" He held them in his hands, his arms outstretched to show them the view. "That coast there, captain says that's Dorne. We'll stop somewhere there soon. But the sun's already hotter here than it was in Oldtown. Less rain now too. Which is good. Never liked the rain. Mother, I don't mean to be ungrateful, but the rain in Oldtown was always so… wet." He made his voice sound more formal. "But I pray to the Seven for a good rain on the farmer's crops and a good harvest before Winter comes."

He sat down crossed legged and enjoyed the sway of the Mouse's Nest as the boat… the ship… skipped over the clear blue waves. It wasn't so bad once you got used to it. Once you stopped vomiting into it, the sea was actually a good place for an adventure. He played with the Knight and his Lady, making the Knight save her from sea krakens this time. And then, because he thought it was only fair, she saved him from a giant that rode on the back of a ferocious lion. He was still making the lion's growls when he heard distant growls of another kind. He peered over the edge of the Mouse's Nest and down to the deck, where the real Patchwork Knight stood in his many coloured cloak, bellowing up at him.

"Mother… What exactly is involved in a gutting?"

***

SANDOR

Sandor rode into the courtyard of Winterfell on the back of a dun mare, seven of his best men forming an honour guard at his back, and was assailed by noise. Servants chatted as they went about their tasks. There was the regular thwack of wooden swords hitting each other as a few lads trained with a master at arms beneath the stone walls. And over by a cart of hay a gaggle of girls were giggling and shrieking as they played some game whose aim seemed entirely to be to create giggles and shrieks.

He took in the scene and noticed finally the things that were wrong. The targets for archery practice were too close to the archers who stood stock till until releasing their arrows all together into the scarecrows that had been tied onto the wide circles. The boys training with swords had a haze over their faces as if they were seen through a great heat. Looking closer Sandor saw that the girls chasing each other were whispery figures made from colours and shapes that formed and reformed as they played. Only one of them looked at all solid.

Sandor dismounted, handing the reigns to a stable boy as the girl's tiny shape charged over, bundled up in a thick cloak with a wolf fur collar. Her auburn hair spread over the grey, but it was not yet at the length he remembered. She must have been all of four years old, but she performed a curtsey that a lady at court would have been envious of.

He bowed in return, but his eyes looked up from it to drift towards the balcony over-looking the courtyard where a straight backed woman stood, also red of hair but with a babe in her arms. And then to where the Lord Stark helped a smaller girl, with a very determined look on her face, take toddling steps across the stones. Their faces shifted back and forth between that same haze and sharp features.

"What did you bring for my name day, my lord?!"

"Sansa…?"

"Did you forget?"

He realised suddenly that he carried a sack cloth bag in one hand, the weight in it making it hang down at his side.

The little girl giggled and covered her mouth with a small and surprisingly grubby hand. She was not yet beautiful, and it would have been wrong to think so of her, but she was adorable. And there were shades of the older girl in her face. The Tully blue eyes, and the auburn hair that framed an impish face. When the smoke came and she returned to her normal shape he was pleased. Especially as she kept that hair that he wanted to touch so much…

She wore a fine dress in Stark greys, made with silks and petticoats that she had not worn on the road. Seeing her dressed as a proper lady he realised she had also dressed him in finery, and suddenly he twisted against the stiffness of the material and the highness of the collar. Even his bloody hair was clean and combed.

"Stop fidgeting…"

He looked back at his honour guard. They wore colours and a sigil he did not know.

"What memory is this, girl?"

"My fourth name day… Did you bring me a present?"

He lifted the sack but did not open it. His eye was caught by the scarecrows on the targets. One wore a fine purple coat and a golden crown over his spiky hay blond hair. The other wore a red dress and her straw hair drifted down from her head in jagged tresses. He laughed darkly.

"And what will I find in the bag Sansa? The head of Meryn Trant? Are you in a dangerous mood today my lady?"

"Perhaps… if you have forgotten my name day present…" Her eyes flashed with a fire and she turned and walked slowly away, an endlessly long dark cloak trailing behind her, sweeping across the courtyard. He followed and found himself stalking her through the echoing hallways and rooms of Winterfell. It was bigger than he remembered, stretching around them as her memory made it more than it had been. She was always just beyond him, always just turning a corner ahead of him and vanishing. Bloody hells, she was playing with him!

"Is this a game of kiss chase girl? I don't mind so much as long as you let me catch you!"

He found himself in a corridor where one door was opened a crack. He stood there for a moment, regaining his breath. Breath? This was all her sending… How could he be out of breath? But even so, he stilled himself before knocking on her door. The door creaked open.

She lay on her belly on an ornately embroidered white coverlet, surrounded by the drapes of an impressive four poster bed, which were also marked by blue flowers that had been sewn onto them. Her work he thought, it looked neat enough.

She was reading a large bound book, her legs kicking slowly above her, her toes wiggling as she concentrated on reading. Her skirts and fine petticoats had pooled around the crook of her knees and he saw that her calves and feet were free of stockings. Seven bloody hells, it was one of the most arousing things he had ever seen. Fuck that. It was the most arousing thing he'd seen.

He walked to the bed and sat down beside her, aware of how much the bed loudly creaked and moved under his weight. Her legs were still swaying beside him and it took all of his effort not to encircle one of those delicate ankles with his hand, or to run a finger down the curve of her calf muscle towards that mess of silks by her knees.

"What's the book? You didn't bring me here to tell me a bed time story did yer?" He peered closer and saw an illustration of a knight on horseback, a fucking pennant curling from his lance. "Knights… bloody knights."

"And magic… I remember that there were stories about magic in this book. My father gave it to me for my name day. He'd had Maester Luwin send for it from Kings Landing. It was very expensive…"

Sandor grunted derisively, but then a thought occurred to him. "It's not your name day is it girl? For true?"

She paused, biting on her lip in a way that was driving him closer to madness. But she didn't look back at him. "Could be. Or soon abouts… I've lost count of the days and weeks. But that's not important. I wanted to read the book, for the stories about magic… but look at the pages!"

He looked closer and the words were under the same haze as the people's faces.

"I can remember some of the pictures, but none of the words! Its… its bloodyinfuriating!"

He laughed at her pale attempt at cursing.

And then he did reach for her nearest leg, running calloused fingers from her arching foot, down the smooth curve of the muscle, to trace lines across the thin skin behind her knee as he spoke.

"Maybe I can think of something for your name day present little bird…"

She had stopped swinging her legs as he started to touch, becoming rock still. But then suddenly she drew herself back onto her knees and knelt beside him.

"Sandor!"

"Sorry!"

"No… no. Don't you see?"

"More games girl?"

"You touched me!" She paused looking at his uncomprehending eyes with her own widely excited blue ones. "This is my daydream. But you touched me! You can make me see… feel… things as well"

Dirty possibilities multiplied in his mind and he quashed them quickly. But perhaps not quickly enough, as shapes drifted around the room and a bright red glow flashed across her cheeks.

"Forgive me lass… I see I need to be careful what I think around you-"

He was cut off by her lips, and he returned the kiss, tempering her enthusiasm with his own slow burning hunger for her.

"We could stay…" She whispered against his mouth. "We could stay here. We could sleep out there and stay safe here in Winterfell."

He pulled away from her, sadness for her acheing his heart. Whatever the rest of him was feeling for her at that moment.

"It ain't real lass. There are no words on the pages of yer book because you don't remember them. Yer parents' faces are already drifting away…. You can't live in here and drift away out there. For a start the captain would throw our rotting bodies into the sea for the fish…" He had tried to make light of it, but tears were forming at the corners of her eyes.

"And believe me girl, kissing you out there is sweeter than dreams of it."

Her hair, the red and silken sheets of it, suddenly fell away at her shoulders, dropping in a great cloud of crimson as what remained returned to its current brown-ish colour. He took her chin in his rough hand and tilted her head up to look into her welling eyes.

"You want a name day present? Winterfell. One day I will get you to the North and your people. And you will stand in front of them as a woman and they will bloody well open their gates to you. And they will ring all their fucking bells to welcome you back".

Sansa's chamber vanished… and he was back on the bed in the cabin, on a ship that took them to the gods knew where.

And the bird was singing.

***

On another day he woke from dreaming with her with a stabbing hunger in him. Part of it was the usual hunger of man for a woman. Any man would hunger for a fair woman he'd travelled with as long as he'd travelled with her already. And a man would have to be a bloody fool not to want to take this girl. All long limbed she was under those dresses, with a shape that curved where it ought, and a face like the Maiden's very fucking self. But he hated those thoughts, the ones that horrified and thrilled him when he looked at her. The things he would do if he could. The things he would do that would shock her, disgust her maybe, given how little she knew. Her innocence was in part to blame for that desire and in part the very thing his desire would take…

But this hunger was more than the lust of a man for a woman. He hungered for her closeness, for her touch. Gods damn him, he would more than happily let her just sit and pet his hair like the dog he was, and these fucking dreams were only making that hunger grow.

Did she know? Surely she did… In this last sending she'd expanded their meagre cabin to fit in a finely laid table. It was covered with sweeping white cloths and laden with silver plates bearing frilly, artistic food from Kings Landing and Highgarden. The wine was white and sweet and as he drank it, holding in his grimaces, he imagined it was one she might have shared with a lady of court once, with one glass enough to have them fall to giggling and gossiping. He picked at the fine dishes, finding what he could recognise and what he could stomach while she talked lightly of minor things, avoiding all the dark looming subjects between them.

He asked a few questions, about the first time she rode a horse, about the people she liked at Winterfell… and those she disliked at Kings Landing… and he was surprised to find he liked to listen to her chatter, and he even smiled at her self-mocking jokes and her stories about people he'd never even noticed when he was there. He was so taken with her story about Milla the kitchen maid, and what the groomsboy had supposedly seen under her skirts, that he had not noticed that the food had changed. The silver plates were replaced with earthen ware and the fancy food became hearty Northern dishes. There was a thick venison stew with fat floating dumplings. There was a steak and kidney pie which oozed gravy. A dark fruitcake with raisons and sultanas pimpling it lay cut into slabs. And the wine… the wine had become a dark red, thick and heady that bit back a little as he drank it. He looked up to see Sansa smiling at him warmly as she rested her head on laced fingers.

"I think I am starting to know what you like…"

He covered his cough, choking slightly on the wine. The girl was smarter than they had ever given her credit for, that was certain. And there was a wicked glint to those innocent eyes when it pleased her to drop the courtesies. And that also thrilled him. Gods damn him!

But still, now he ate as he wished. He minded his manners with the cutlery, even if the food was no longer quite so high and lordly. He'd eaten more with other men or by himself than with ladies, and he kept having to remind himself not to let the juices of a chicken leg drip down his mouth, nor to wolf the food down. Which in itself was a joke. He could act the dog and eat it all and it wouldn't leave him full of belly. It was all smoke as she could be…

That thought on his mind, he leaned back in the chair and supped on the wine only. He'd drunk way more than he could ever have managed had it been real wine. But her memories of drinking were few and she was sharing only a slight warmth and fuzziness that he found relaxing. Well, he had memories to share too.

"Drink up, lass." She smiled and reached for her own goblet of wine, and he sent her a memory of a fine feast where he'd ended the night wandering back to his quarters with a weaving step. Her eyes opened widely as the drink hit her, before narrowing them at him.

"Are you trying to get me drunk? …My lord?"

He grunted at her spiky response. But when she got to her feet, was she swaying slightly?

"I've heard tell that a lap is a good place to sit… for kissing and such…?" She made her way to him, down the fine table, a hand tracing lines on the table cloth, a dullness to her wine touched eyes.

"Girl…" There was a warning in the gravel of his voice.

"What harm is there in it… in dreaming it?"

So she'd sat on his knee and let him hold her about the waist. She'd dropped kisses onto his lips. And he'd inhaled the scent of her, remembered from days at King's Landing when she wore some fine perfume, and from days on the road when she'd smelt of grass and rain to his dog nose.

But he'd held back from anything more. So now he woke hungry and empty.

Hearing shouts from up on deck, and the sound of Mouse's rapid yipping, he stormed upstairs hoping for a chance to work out that frustration… somehow. After Mouse's trip up the mast he'd found out who'd put him up to it, and Barak now wore a darkly bruised eye as well as that bloody stupid looking bandana. But he'd left the boy untouched, just scared him into a meek apology. If Sansa had realised what he'd done he would have done worse… A few times he'd caught her calling the boy Bran, or Rickon, and he'd not have her sad.

She flew behind him as he went up the wooden steps, then swooping up into the sky to stretch her wings. He raised a hand to his eyes to watch her for a moment, and he found himself still disturbed that the girl and the bird were one, even after all this time.

On deck Mouse was crouched amidst a circle of the ship's men, rolling and rerolling dice on the wooden planks of the deck. He was fool enough to be playing games of chance with Braavosi men, but looking at the pile of coins by his toes, the Hound gathered that he was an even greater fool…. The furious looks on his fellow players' faces weren't registering with the idiot boy, who was crowing over every single good fucking roll!

He just was marching towards the boy, the patchwork cloak swirling around him, as Captain Denaro intercepted him.

"Perhaps this is a good lesson for him…"

"You can't learn a lesson if you've been shanked by a Braavosi sailor!"

Denaro shrugged. "My men won't hurt the boy… not badly anyway…"

Sandor growled and pushed the man out the way. But Mouse was already counting out the coins. "… and here's two silver for Haig."

"But I lost three!" Bellowed the red faced master carpenter.

"Aye, true… but Ellerii needs four to repay his brother when we get to Braavos." Ellerii Prettyboy nodded ruefully.

Mouse pushed over the last of his coins to the nearest sailor. "And remember, thank the Seven in your next prayers!" He chirped at them, but the men merely groaned and took back their returned winnings before wandering back to their tasks. Mouse looked up as Sandor's shadow fell over him.

"A dangerous game you play, boy."

"The Seven will protect me…"

Sandor grunted dismissively and walked away across the deck, finding Riveriil waiting for him by the ship's railing, leaning against it as he leisurely chewed on some bitterleaf, which he spat into the sea once in a while.

"You should watch that one. He's either going to be High Septon or a master criminal…"

Sandor smiled grimly and the two men stood in companionable silence, looking across the waves at the shadowy lines of the Red Mountains of Dorne.

"What does the Courtesan wish for, Denaro?"

"Ah, this question, it bothers you?"

Sandor shrugged, unwilling to admit to any real interest. Riveriil settled into a the story, as though he'd told it many times before.

"The Courtesan, she was a woman, more beautiful than most, more elegant certainly. But she wished for the same things as all women. She wished for the heart of the man she loved. He was just a simple sailor. For all her high status and powerful lovers she fell for a plain-ish looking man of no great name who worked as crew on a trading vessel. She saw him one day, down by the docks of Bravos. Who knows what magic works on the hearts of women sometimes… but she wanted him, this plain looking sailor. And she had him for a little while. But then the sailor returned to the sea, and to other women. Endless days and nights she waited for his return. Might be he came back occasionally, to re-stoke the fire. But he'd always go away again. She even bought him this ship, and named it for her heart felt wish that he'd come back to her. But she made him a captain, and he made love to others. And then… finally… he didn't come back. Months passed and he still didn't return."

Riveriil spat, and then placed more bitter leaf in his mouth.

"In Bravos there is a place where people go who no longer wish to live. The House of Black and White. There you can lie there quietly, in that final peace, and drink a water that makes all things go away. She went there wearing the black of a widow and lay down to die. That was the Courtesan's second to last wish…"

"Did you not feel bad about that, you little shit?!" Sandor was shocked at himself, what the fuck did he care about this greasy Braavosi's woman and her death…?

Riveriil laughed darkly, bitterly. "You mistake me, ser knight. I was not the sailor. I was the babe in her belly that the Faceless Men cut out as she lay drifting into the arms of the Stranger. They have rules those Faceless ones, and giving away two lives isn't allowed. No, I was not the sailor of the story. But I found him… eventually. And now he doesn't get to come back occasionally… or to make love… or even to breathe. And so the Courtesan's last wish is that her son has her ship."

He spat a stream of brown saliva over the railings.

Sandor walked away from him then, a dark heaviness cast over his features. And the bird landed on his shoulder as he made his way back down into the ship's underbelly, seeking real food at last.

***

SANSA

He was going to kill her for this, but she had to do it…

She looked down at the two of them on the bed, and her chest ached as something bloomed there. The boy was almost curled around the dog, but still not quite touching him. The dog was stretched out flat on his belly, muzzle on front paws, facing the door, always guarding even though sleep had finally taken him. He'd been staying awake at night for days… in part to guard them, in part, she knew, so he would tired during the day and could let her send to him as he slept the afternoon away.

He was right though. The sendings were nothing like the real thing. They were shadowy copies of the halls of Winterfell and food that left you starving even if you ate forever.

Though, their time together was so sharply real in comparison. She'd never thought about the touch of a man before. All her daydreams had been full of pale courteous men who would escort her to the high table, take her favour, or cloak her while Sept's bells rang out. She had never daydreamed about a large hand on her waist or twined in her hair. And the Hound, of all men, so like a storm, quick to anger and deadly… that it would be him who captured her daydreams…

She gathered up his patchwork cloak. He was going to be extremely quick to anger if he found out what she was doing! She swung it around her shoulders and drew up the hood. They were of a height, almost, but no one looking closely would confuse her slight figure for his broad one. But it might help…

She opened the door to the cabin cautiously, whispering a prayer to any listening gods to stop it from creaking. And then, before her courage could fail her, she was up on the main deck of the ship, sweeping the length of the cloak behind her as she let the trapdoor down onto the wooden steps. The rocking of the ship was stronger here and she took a moment to get her balance.

Then, after peering about for the ship's watch, Sansa lifted her head to look up at the stars, breathing deeply of the salt sea air. The bird couldn't appreciate this in the same way. The bird was a creature of the sun and the day, of clouds and new horizons. Since the curse the night had become her place, the moon and stars above her shining down on her half-life and jewelling her memories of their journey. The rough camps he'd made for them before his change took him. Her stuttering attempts to light a fire for them. Endless bloody rabbits for supper.

She smiled as the curse occurred in her thoughts. He was an influence on her now. Sometimes she caught herself having sharp and bloody thoughts about certain people… making them into scarecrows for target practice was the least she thought she might do to them if she had the chance…

"A pretty smile on a pretty stowaway's face…"

Sansa started and drew back against the railings. It was Captain Denaro, emerging from a shadow. He was dressed in a dark coat that had covered his usual loose white shirt, his dark brown curls for once tied back into a low knot. He looked at her wryly, and gave Sansa no sense that he was angry to be finding her here, only curious.

"Does our knight friend know that you have stolen his cloak pretty girl?"

"Please…"

"Aye, to see a lady such as yourself does please. But my men are superstitious and they will not be pleased that a woman is aboard their ship. There are offerings that they would have made had they known…" He shrugged. "They may have to throw you overboard."

Sansa looked down quickly over her shoulder into the deep blue of the sea below them.

"A lesser man might suggest that there are things you can offer to pay for your passage…"

Fear began to change to anger and she held herself up straighter, stronger.

"You will not threaten me!"

"I did say a lesser man. And I am Riveriil Denaro. I am no lesser man."

He spread his hands wide, but Sansa kept an eye on the sharp thin blade at his waist. He laughed and unbuckled his sword belt before pushing it away on the deck. "You, my lady, have an untrusting heart."

"I do not know you Captain. I do not know what kind of man you are…"

"I did not say you were not wiser for it…" Riveriil considered her face intently, and under her gaze she found herself blushing red. "The Patchwork Knight has hid you well girl. Maybe he has heard of my legendary skills as a lover…" He lifted an eyebrow and it took Sansa a moment to catch the humour in his words. Against her wishes she giggled.

But her giggle was drowned by the sound of the dog's growl.

Before she knew what he was doing Riveriil had rolled himself across the wooden deck, scooped up his thin blade and got up on one knee, holding the sword out before him and towards the beast that had emerged, slavering, from the trapdoor behind them.

"No!" Sansa ran between them.

"By the Many-Faced God! That is a big dog!"

"This is… a long story." The Hound's growl grew louder and deeper, full of warnings. "I… I am a merchant's daughter. I ran away with the knight before my wedding. And he snuck me and my… faithful hound… on board. I've been hiding in his cabin."

Riveriil stood slowly, lowering the sword. "We have a rather vulgar expression about the truth in Braavos. I might say it to a merchant's daughter. But not to a highborn lady." He narrowed his eyes at her. But he put his sword away. "You will return to your cabin. And you will continue to hide there. And so, I will not have a to calm an entire ship full of fearful sailors, looking to the horizon every few moments to look for some sea god's wrath!" He bowed to her curtly, and walked away towards the forecastle and his quarters.

She looked down warily at the Hound. The dog's scarred face was impossible to read. But when he walked towards the trapdoor, she followed meekly. Even if, as she stepped lightly down the steps, she was promising herself she would stand under the stars again before they reached Braavos. She'd go mad otherwise, she was certain.

***

"Get up and get out, boy!"

The rough snarl of Sandor's voice woke her and she lifted her head from her pillow, trying to open her eyes. Mouse was already on his feet, automatically shuffling towards the cabin's door, his hair tousled mess of brown over his face.

"Sandor…?"

So, this was it, the telling off she deserved for her risky adventure last night? As she rubbed her eyes and pulled together the wooliness of her thoughts, she realised that the man the boy walked past on his way out was dressed only in his breeches. In the half-light of the early morning she could see the bareness of his chest and the shapes of the muscles there. He must have only just changed, somehow stifling his groans of pain until he was covered and could wake them. If you could call it dressed…

Once Mouse was gone he turned back to where she lay still on the bed, her dress creased around her. She lifted herself up to sit, looking at him with a curious eye. He wasn't shouting. He was just… looking. And with a predatory look… as though there was still something of the dog about him, even though his change was over. Was she imagining the sharpness of his teeth as he smiled, reaching towards the bed with fingers that ended with jagged nails? Or was it a trick of the morning's light?

His body was hunched over as he stalked his way up the bed towards her, the intensity in his eyes thrilling and scaring her in equal measure. One hand captured her ankle and began to hunt its way up her leg as it had done in her sending of Winterfell. He pushed his fingers further up under her skirts and then to just over her knee. She gasped a little at the sensation, so much more powerful than when he'd done it first in their dreams. But just as she was worrying where that hand intended to go, he made it join the other in holding her hips, as he knelt before her, his legs interwoven with hers.

With infuriating slowness those large hands moved up her waist, marking how they could almost meet thumb to thumb. Then his fingers were on her ribs and the thumbs were resting over her… oh gods… resting over her breasts, applying light pressure to her nipples through the thick material of dress. She dipped her head, allowing a dark curtain of hair to cover her reddening face. But he angled his face and pushed it against hers to expose her neck, which he then claimed with his mouth. His damaged mouth was nuzzling into the hollow between her neck and collar bone and she closed her eyes, embracing the feeling of surrender and the intense warmth that flowed over her whole body…

It took her a moment to realise what was happening, and to bring herself back to herself. He was… hurting her.

"Sandor… Sandor!" strength came from somewhere she did not understand and she pushed him back, clapping a hand to the large reddening mark on her neck, her mouth falling open in a surprised shape.

Realisation and regret flashed across his face, but was replaced quickly by her hand, as she summoned all her rage and focussed it in her palm, slapping him hard on the unburnt side of his face.

"You stupid… stupid dog!"

She hated herself for using the word as soon as it was out of her mouth, thinking of the times Joffrey had called him it. But the rage was coursing through her veins like fire, and she knew exactly why he'd done it. Exactly why he'd given her a mark instead of a telling off…

"Why not just relieve yourself on me so he could smell your ownership!"

She leapt off the bed, and she didn't care if he was going to try and make an excuse for it. Her change wasn't coming yet, but she reached for the smoke anyway, not even understanding what she was doing.

Come, she called to it, Come. Give me wings to fly away.

And the smoke came. She was the bird and on the wing before he could say anything, before he could stop her from darting out of the porthole and sweeping up into the sky above the ship.

She wanted to fly as far as she could, to get as far away from the dog as she could. But the boundary would stop her eventually. She could maybe make it to the Salt Shore from the ship, but only endless dunes of sun beaten sand waited for her there. So instead she flew high above the ship, her sharp eyes watching as Sandor burst from the trapdoor onto the deck and shouted out her real name like a bloody fool. Over and over again.

Riveriil was standing alone on deck when Sandor appeared, and she heard him make some joking comment to him, only a couple of the words drifting up on the wind to her ears. "Sansa" and "poem".

The Hound exploded, charging at the small Braavosi man and connecting his fist with the captain's face. Other crewmembers ran over but Riveriil gestured for them to stand back, spitting out a stream of red onto the deck. Mouse tried to get between them, but the Hound pushed him aside, making the boy land heavily on his side. He limped away, stifling tears, and Sansa shrieked in her bird's tongue.

Riveriil nodded and undid his sword belt, passing the thin blade to his first mate. Sansa landed on the Crow's Nest, horrified at what was happening but not knowing how to stop them.

The two men circled each other. The Hound had size and weight on Riveriil, but the Braavosi moved quicker and tumbled like a gymnast out of his path when the Hound charged at him, blind with rage. The punches the captain landed on him were like gnat's bites to the Hound. But when he connected with the captain's belly it sounded like thunder booming out across the deck and Riveriil staggered and heaved. But it wasn't all going the Hound's way. The crew circled the two men, pushing the Hound back in when Riveriil tripped him and made him stagger. Riveriil pushed his advantage and kicked him several times in the knee cap. He fell to the deck on one knee, breathing heavily, sweat pouring off of him. The thunder came again, but Sansa barely noticed, watching as Sandor got back up, slowly.

Wagers were taken. Curses were thrown at the bare chested Westerosi, as well slurs about his parentage and his… manhood.

Then Sansa felt something odd happening. It was as though her feathers were lifting themselves on their own accord. Her eyes were drawn suddenly to the mast, where she was shocked to see an eldritch blue light glowing, a light that flickered and pulled upwards like a flame. Sansa's first thought was of wildfire, and the horrors of the Blackwater. But as it ran across the top of the sails it did not seem to burn them. A few of the sailors had obviously felt the same wrongness in the air and were looking up and pointing as the oily blue flames licked down the sails in sheets towards them and the fighters.

One shouted "god's breath!", another shouted " spirit candles!", but it was only when one of them shouted "witch fire!" that the Hound stopped his attack on Riveriil and looked back in fear towards the mast, his terrible face illuminated by the strange blue flames. As it washed across the deck the men ran, including Riveriil. But Sandor was frozen in place, his bare chest still heaving from the fight. The blue fire licked up his legs and he roared, thunder ringing out in the sky at the same time, a darkening on the horizon suddenly making its self known as a storm.

And then it hit them.


	13. Chapter 13

RIVERIIL

_Five… ten… even twenty years later and Riveriil would find himself yet again in a tavern, listening from afar and pretending indifference, as some drunken sailor started to tell the story of that storm. In each retelling the storm was bigger, more dangerous, more the child of an angry sea god than a normal thundering in the narrow sea. But it wasn't the storm the sailors were interested in. It wasn't because of the storm that the story was spread from the original crewmembers of the Courtesan's Wish to the lips of crusty old sea dogs on either side of the sea. It wasn't even the deadliest storm Riveriil had ridden, being over so fast as it had been. But the story lived on because of the Man on Fire._

_Sometimes he heard the stories about him that used his other name, the Patchwork Knight, but those were mostly told by children in the street. In Braavos, Salt Shore, and even in King's Landing, he had stood and watched small boys and girls taking turns to be him and to box the ears of the poor unfortunate who'd been picked to play the Giant who rode the Lion. They even had a child swooping around as the bird. But they always got it wrong, she was a songbird not a hawk…_

_And all the old sailors got the story wrong because they weren't there. The Man on Fire never held up the mast on his own. He never held back the sea as it tried to gush in through the hull. And none of them knew about what happened after the storm quelled and the rum was shared. Riveriil knew because he had been the only one there, still up on deck as his men went to work. He remembered, and he would never forget…_

The day had turned to night in an instance as the clouds swept over the sea, the cog a tiny shape in the crashing waves. A tiny shape alight with Witch's Fire. And in the eye of the fire and the storm was a man screaming as he beat at the flames with open palms. Riveriil and his men watched from the forecastle, eyes wide and staring. Witch's Fire never did this, never took over an entire ship or touched men like this. Some called it Spirit Candles because it would sometimes spurt from the points of yard arms and the masts. But to wash over the sails and down onto the deck. Riveriil couldn't keep from shivering. But his ship was at stake, his mother's ship, and he had to save her.

"Men. To your fucking stations! Now!" He bellowed over the crash of thunder and the roar of the waves.

"But… but captain. We can't!" That was Ellerii, and Riveriil backhanded him across the mouth, ruining that pretty face with his fist for now.

"Go."

Reluctantly the men tumbled out from their hiding places, skirting the man who'd halted his frantic beating at the flames and was standing hunched in the middle of the deck as the fire cascaded over him. He raised his head and bellowed desperately into the face of the storm.

"Sansa!"

The name of the man's woman drifted back to Riveriil, and he grimaced as he touched the bruises the man had given him. But enough of that now, there was no time. He ran to where his men were pulling on ropes to collapse the sails, fighting against the wind that filled them and threatened to rip the mast from the very hull of his ship.

"Pull! Pull damn you! Pull, or I'll feed you to the storm myself!" But even seven of them could not do it.

Then the Witch's Fire ran up the rope as though it was soaked in wildfire and the men dropped it as though it burned them, although it did not. Looking back behind him…gods he did not want to… looking back, Riveriil saw the Patchwork Knight pulling on the rope, the flames flowing from his body, running over his naked shoulders like a firey mantle… or like the cloak he normally wore. The sails fell and they turned to the next set. But the man was already striding there, and did the work of seven men in a single pull of those burning arms, the blue light in his mad eyes as he did what had to be done.

Waves rolled the ship near over and Riveriil watched his men drenched and battered. His light feet meant he skipped in time with the rocking of his lady. But Haig, the large master carpenter was a fat target for some sea god's wrath and the water took him, skimming him across the deck like a stone. Again, the man on fire was there, sweeping up the massive man like he was a boy…

The boy! The boy! Riveriil looked around in desperation, where had he gone during the fight? And the man's woman… was she below deck? He spotted a bedraggled Mouse hunkered down against the door to the captain's cabin. Leaping across the deck he grabbed him by his shirt and threw him into his rooms.

"The other door boy, it goes into the lower decks. Get through and find his woman…"

"Saaansaaaa!"

The man was shouting again, part lament, part in fear it sounded. Gods help Riveriil if she was gone. He could not face the knight's fists again, and he was sure to get the blame if his ship had bucked her off into those churning depths.

That firey cloak suddenly swept past his face, and Riveriil felt no heat from it, just an unnerving sensation as every hair on his body lifted itself. The man was leaping up from the deck to the plunging and soaring quarter deck, where the main boom was shrieking back and forth. He grabbed it and squared his feet against the deck. No man should be able to hold that beast steady, but he did it! Riveriil watched with amazement as he leant hard against it, the cloak of flames spreading across the wood, almost as though rooting him there.

And beyond him Riveriil could see the blessed sky, lightening finally to a dull grey. In time the howl of the wind fled past them to harass the sand dunes of the salt shore, and the man's cloak departed with it, going out like a candle robbed of air. He sank to the deck there, resting against the railings as Riveriil reached him.

He could hear a slight murmer from the man's scarred lips. "Sansa" he whispered, over and over again.

Riveriil shouted a phrase in Braavosi and it was picked up and repeated by the rest of his men as they helped each other to stand. The least hurt of them dashed below decks to return with small barrels that they smashed their way into. Barak brought the captain and the knight a boiled leather tankard each of the dark rich rum. Riveriil sat down wearily beside the desolate man and repeated the phrase, saying it again in the common tongue for the Westerosi.

"We are still here."

He passed him the tankard and the man downed a large gulp. Riveriil's crew were well trained and many of them supped quickly and then went below decks to check on the damage, even if, as they did, the captain could hear the beginnings of the story of the Man on Fire.

But Riveriil stayed with the hunched figure, looking at his scars properly for the first time, and the sorrow his face kept there. How he regretted his comment about dedicating his next poem of love to the girl… however fine a lady she had been… but now was not the time to remind him of that.

"Aye, we are still here." The man finally croaked out the words.

"The boy looks for her below decks."

"She weren't below deck." There was a flatness to his voice, a deadness.

"But-"

Riveriil was interrupted by more unnatural weather.

Rolling across the still agitated waves came a fog, the likes of which he had never seen before. It came upwards over the railings and swirled around the quarterdeck. Suddenly, the man seemed to live again and stood suddenly to step forward into the strange smoke. Riveriil tried to focus his eyes on the shape of the man through the grey, his shadow cast back towards him by a sun that was pretending now that it had never hidden from them behind the passing storm.

Wait… Were there… were there two shadows there? The other, smaller, a woman's shadow, reached up with both arms to wrap herself and the smoke, around him like yet another cloak. She placed a kiss on that scarred mouth as her hair swept down behind her, trailing into smoke. But then a fresh breeze blew across the sea bringing the taste of salt with it, and the smoke was swept away, leaving the man stood there… alone.

What kind of fool would try to take the woman of a man who could burn and not die? A man who had the strength of seven men and the rage of a storm? A man who was already the stuff of stories and legends. And what kind of fool would try to take a woman who came and went like smoke?

As he finished his rum, Riveriil knew that he was not that fool.

***

SANSA

The Courtesan's Wish limped into Salt Shore harbour. She was battered and bruised from the storm, and even Haig and his carpenters had struggled to put some things right. She would need a good couple of days in the harbour and Sansa was glad to be having some time off ship.

She swooped round past the naked figurehead, who was now showing patches of wood through her already revealing paintwork shift, and landed expertly on Sandor's shoulder as he stood with Riveriil and Mouse at the prow. The captain had dressed in finery for disembarking, some Braavosi custom she thought, and the man and the boy looked poorer and scruffier next to him. Sandor had very reluctantly left his armour in their cabin in the face of the glaring sun, but still wore the travel stained patchwork cloak, and the mask too, even if he was sweating beneath them both. And his dagger glinted darkly at his waist.

She wished that they could have some time alone together, as woman and man. How ever it was that she had forced the curse to let her stand with on the deck after the storm, she just could not make it last. She'd had only moments in which to express her relief that he was whole, and the only way she could do that… well, kissing him might have said it more eloquently than she could have done with words. Of course, she was stillangry with him. He had been so bloody… territorial! And stupid! But when she'd slapped him, his face had fallen just as Mouse's did when she caught him doing something he oughtn't. His latest trick was keeping his pick pocket skills sharp by stealing Haig's bitterleaf…

Yes, there was something of the small boy about the fearsome Hound sometimes. And hadn't he… hadn't he said he'd only been with women who wanted payment? What did he really know of being with a woman beyond… the physical act? But then, what did she really know of men?

The bird nestled closer to his shoulder, and he murmered to her in low tones, reassuring her.

Finally they were docked to Riveriil's satisfaction. He'd shouted a hundred curses at the dockhands for roughly treating his lady, and Sansa was interested to note some new curses that had never found their way to Winterfell or to King's Landing. The captain bowed to Sandor and Mouse at the bottom of the gangplank as they disembarked.

"You are of course welcome to join myself and my men at the Gargalen's Beak . A modest Salt Shore tavern to be true, but you'll have plenty o'food and drink bought for you by my very grateful crew…"

Sandor looked away from the man and narrowed his eyes towards the main town. "We'll find our own lodgings… though, I'd appreciate your men taking my horse to a good stable." He tossed a coin into the air which Riveriil caught with a snake fast fist.

"Of course… ser." He made an elaborate show of biting the coin and winking at Mouse.

"That was rude… wasn't it? You were being rude?" Mouse looked up at Sandor with wide eyes as he trotted after his larger paces, heading towards the buildings and bustle.

"Man thinks we can be friends now. Some nonsense about me saving his boat. Best I show him otherwise…"

"But… why not be friends?"

Sandor grunted dismissively and carried on with his long strides. He stopped a random man who was carting turnips along in a barrel. "A good tavern, and quick about it."

"The Gargalen's Beak…"

"Not that one… quieter."

"Well, Mezzi runs a fair tavern up on the third quarter. Nearer the castle, after the tenth fountain. Called the Black Snake."

Sandor nodded and walked on, watched by the turnip man who tutted at his curtness.

Salt Shore was a curious town. The Gargalens' castle sat on top of a slowly sloping cliff line, facing the sea and the streets below. The main path up to the castle was a wide series of steps carved into the cliff. Branching off of the steps were streets like the fronds of a fern. Occasionally there were fountains breaking up the monotony of the seemingly endless steps and Sandor and Mouse stopped at the second one, already feeling the effect of the heat and the stretching of their legs.

"How many bloody steps does a town need?!" Sandor spat drily into the dust on the ground.

"Twenty seven times twenty seven more mi'lord." An old woman bundled in black cackled as she walked past them and onwards up the steps. "Twenty seven for the lovers of Nymeria, and twenty seven for the hearts she broke!" The woman laughed, and Sansa thought maybe that this was an old joke in Salt Shore. She did the sum in her head, using the tricks Maester Luwin had drummed into her. That was… seven hundred and twenty nine steps!

"And how many is that old woman?!" But she was far past hearing him, moving with a surprising sprightliness, and Sandor looked down at the boy in confusion.

"Don't ask me ser, I don't count past seven. Can't read neither." Sansa groaned internally, how by the Seven had she missed that! Well, that was something she could work on next time the boy insisted on a bed time story.

Sandor growled and hauled himself to his feet, swiping a handful of water into a cupped hand and splashing it into his mouth.

"It's more than I would like to be fucking climbing that's for sure!" But he trudged on nevertheless, the boy keeping up even in the heat and Sansa flying beside them both.

As they made their way up Sansa noticed how the buildings to either side of the steps were improving. Those closest to the harbour were haphazardly set and scorched and scratched by the wind that came off of the sea. Those that came next were better maintained but plain. Then came houses with grandiose arches with wrought iron gates, and domes in sand hues that became larger and larger the closer the two walkers got to the castle's walls. In the distance she finally saw a painted tavern sign hanging out over the carved steps. It was the cockatrice of House Gargalen, holding the black snake in its beak, but the snake had its own tail in its mouth. It was a strange change to the usual sigil and Sansa was curious to know why it had been painted that way.

But before they got there, a palanquin hefted by four dark skinned men charged out of a side street and across Sandor and Mouse's path, and carried on across the steps to the street branching off on the other side.

"Make way! Make Way!" A fat boy of thirteen or so waddled after it, dressed in fine silks that didn't quite fit his rotund belly, or the length of his limbs. "Make Way for Malakor the Magnificent. Malakor the Dread Eye. Malakor, the wisest man in the Seven Kingdoms!" His voice cracked and broke as he shouted, and Sansa wondered why he was so far behind the palanquin, and not ahead of it heralding its passage. But then she saw how slowly he ran and she understood. "Make Way! Make Way for Malakor the Master Mage!"

Sandor cursed under his breath and started on up the steps again, Mouse watching after the street show with interest. But neither of them noticed her near silent wings as she flew after the bouncing litter and its waddling herald.

***

At first she thought that she was sick, she felt so feverish. Her tongue was a large dry thing lying in her mouth, sticking to the roof of it as she tried desperately to swallow. Then she felt the water that was trickling from her temples, across her cheeks and across her lips. She tasted it, no, not water, sweat. She was roasting to death it seemed… but it wasn't just her. The hardness her face was laying against was red hot too, and the fingertips of her left hand reflexively twitched above the baking stones as she summoned the energy to move, finger by finger. Finally she could bear the heat from the slate below her no more and lethargically sat up, only to crash her head into something hard above her that sent stars spinning across her already hazy vision. She put a shaking hand to her head, and felt the wet strands of her dyed hair slicked to her head. She groaned and forced her eyes to focus.

She was in the angry eye of the sun. That was the only possible explanation for the intense light that beat down on her as she lay on the stones. It was bright, impossibly bright. And so, so hot. But as she concentrated she made out shapes in the bright light. A yellow shining was on all sides, forming parallel bars a hands width apart. Bars. Golden bars of a cage. A small cage at that, only big enough to allow her to sit on the slate floor, the bars descending into the stone work and into it… and possibly even under it.

So she could only sit… wait, she was in human form and it was day! But how was that possible?! Was it truly day?! Questions overwhelmed her and her head swam. She closed her eyes for a moment to try and regain herself, praying under her breath. Then she looked up blearily, trying to shield her eyes with a hand to see where the sunlight was coming from. Blinking, she could make out a large round window, opened and tilted slightly, but letting in no merciful breeze. Was it really a window though? Dorne was hot, far hotter than Kings Landing but this light and heat was hellish. It had to be a lens, focussing the sun's heat down into the room. Who would make such a device? And who would cage her and turn it on her?

Malakor. Malakor the Mage.

She remembered following the palanquin and his little fat herald boy, flying above them to a grey house with a shabby, unkempt courtyard. She'd watched the skeleton thin figure emerge and go into the house, and then she'd darted to every window until she'd found him again, in a room where he was beating his herald and grumbling about some slight. And then…her memory was hazy after that. She'd meant to find out more about this mage and then return to Sandor and Mouse, but something had happened… what though?

But the solution to her predicament was so obvious she almost laughed when it struck her. The golden bars were easily wide enough for the bird to get through…. and it was day after all. The bird belonged to the day, not the girl. All she had to do was reach for the smoke, change and then escape!

But the smoke was gone.

She trembled as she realised. She should have been relieved; she should have sung for joy that the curse was broken. But those golden bars glared at her in the sunlight and seared themselves into her eyes. There was no escape.

"And now you see…"

Sansa looked over to the sound of the voice, but the light from the lens had put the rest of the room into deepest shadow. She could only make out odd shapes; tumbling papers on chairs and a large desk, a high backed chair, and something hanging from the ceiling from thin chains that looked like… a snake but with legs… or a wingless dragon!? It did not move and Sansa assumed whatever the beast was, it was dead and long since stuffed.

Something arose from the high backed chair and Sansa could make out the stick thin figure of Malakor, still clothed in shadow.

"Please… please, some water?" She struggled to get the thick, sticky, words out of her dry mouth.

"I asked for the same mercy you know. All those years ago."

"Please… please…"

"I have waited seventy years. Seventy years of jumping at every shadow behind me. Seventy years of waking from dreams of that night. Seventy years… and they send a girl!"

"I don't understand…"

"I saw you try and reach for your power. I saw the disappointment in your face when it didn't come running. You know of what I talk. You are one of them!"

"No!" She coughed as she tried to get the rush of words out. "I'm not one of them. I didn't know about the Smiling Brothers until-"

"What?! What did you call them?"

"The Smiling Brothers…"

Malakor laughed and a chill ran down Sansa's sweat drenched back. There was no true joy in the laugh, only a dead, grey sarcasm.

"I call them the Order. I have studied their ways for seventy years and you are the first to call them that!"

"'The Order' then… please. This power… I do not want it. One of them cursed me-"

"You think this a curse!?" Malakor stepped closer then, and even with her eyes dazzled by the light that beat down on her, she could make out his bald head, his deep set, dark, eyes, and the talon like hands that he gestured with. A rich flowing silk robe clothed the man's skinny body but he looked more like a vulture than a man in his erratic movements.

"You have been given a gift, little girl. A gift that I was judged to be not worthy of!" He swooped down to face her, the golden bars between them. Up close his skin was like the flesh of a corpse, and his breath was worse.

"I was one of their 'potentials' and they took me from my bed in the deeps of the night. But I failed their unfathomable damned tests! And they would have sacrificed me to their first gods on the new moon if I hadn't picked the lock of my cell with my cellmate's little finger bone… Well, he didn't need it did he? Not if he was heading to have his throat cut and his blood drunk by one of their deviant gods!"

Sansa tried to recoil from him, but there was nowhere to go in this cramped golden cage. No way to escape, and no way that Sandor could find her here. Why did she keep doing this?! He'd risked everything to take her away from Kings Landing and at every opportunity she was falling into danger! As parched as she was, tears started to prick at her eyes. Damn them! Tears wouldn't help her here!

Malakor didn't seem to notice, ranting and raving as he knelt before her, his rich silks spreading around him on the slate floor.

"But they'd shown me their power and damn me, but I wanted it. I wanted it all! But do you know what they did to me? They cut away that part that made the power work… whatever it is inside some of us that means we can use it. Oh, I can still taste it; I can still track the taint of it… that's how I knew what you were, what you really were. But I can never shape it like they do. But I found others who could… Had one of them build me this cage before I cut his throat. This cage, this beautiful and ugly cage, does what they did to me. Cuts off your link to that power they gave you. Cuts you off and makes you powerless like me! Except I've got the damned key haven't I!" He was spitting the words out, spittle flying with them and landing on the roasting floor.

Sansa had drawn back from him as far as she could go in the confines of the golden cage. But now she crept forward again, an idea forming.

"I could help you…"

"You?! A girl with a power she doesn't understand. What can you do?!"

She pushed the damp strands of hair back from her face, and lowered her eyes as she approached him humbly.

"You're right, I don't understand this power. I don't know how to use it, not properly. And you're so clever to see that. You know more about how to use it than I do. So perhaps… perhaps I can use the power… for you."

Greed flashed across the old man's face as the possibilities dawned on him. This was a man who'd been in hiding from the Smiling Brothers for seventy years but still styled himself as a mage. Perhaps he thought that hiding in plain sight was a cunning plan. But Sansa thought it was also a sign of his envy. He wanted magic so hard that it defined who he was even when he had none of his own. If she tempted him with that, perhaps she could find a chance at escape.

"A familiar… in some of the stories great mages had familiars; beasts that brought them great power. And a bird would be a fine familiar…" Malakor was thinking hard, turning the idea over in his mind like a gem and looking for flaws. "…I'd have to find a way to ensure your loyalty. Perhaps a new version of the cage… But there was that Citadel man who talked about a way to make leashes for humans out of magic. I tortured him for five days straight but he eventually told me what he knew of the Order!" Malakor dashed to his pile of papers on his desk and scrabbled around amongst them, muttering to himself all the while.

Sansa slumped against the bars of the cage. She'd bought herself some time, but that was all. Sandor would never be able to find her in the many streets of Salt Shore. He might be able to tell that she hadn't left the city if he tested the boundary of their curse, but tracking her down was near impossible. Even the dog could not follow the bird's scent through the air.

"Please… please, the light, it hurts."

"What's that? Oh, yes, of course." Malakor swept a thick curtain across the lens and Sansa was thrown into a blinding darkness, her eyes unable to adjust quickly enough.

It was in the darkness that she heard the first scream. And then the growl that followed on its heels.

Malakor was distracted by his search but Sansa strained her ears to follow the sound of a growling beast, and the clatter of footsteps as it encountered members of Malakor's household. Another scream came, this time closer. This one was cut off in mid wail. And then Malakor realised what was happening. But it was too late. Something charged against the door to the study, making the wooden door leap against the frame and shaking dust away from it.

"No… no!" He looked at Sansa frantically. "You never said there was another! You never said!"

"I might have done. If you'd given me that water" She croaked out the words with a dark smile. Then the door burst open.

It was the dog. It was Sandor. But she'd never seen him in such a fury before. Nor with blood streaked across his maw and his sides, making him red rather than tan brown. He stalked into the darkened room, and Sansa was shocked to see what looked like waves of heat emanating from his flanks. And where his claws clicked onto the stone floor sparks danced into life and jittered away from his paws, bringing small flames to papers on the floor. If hell contained hounds, then this was their pack leader.

"Please… please! I wasn't going to hurt her. We were just talking!"

The hound looked over at Sansa huddled in the cage, taking in the bars, her exhaustion and the wetness of the sweat on her, and he growled deeply. Candles around the room leapt into life, casting more light on the dread beast.

And then he began to change. Before, in the cabin on the Courtesan's Wish, she had thought she'd seen a little of the dog in him after his change. This time she was certain. His form stretched and grew, but so did his fingers, ending now in long jagged claws. His teeth remained sharp, pointed and covered in blood. His hair was longer, fuller, and joining with the hair on his body. He roared in pain and Sansa heard the sound of water dripping somewhere nearby. A drip that became a hiss as that water, Malakor's own water, hit the burning slate flagstones near Sandor and evaporated in the heat he was generating.

"Don't hurt him!" Sansa cried out. "He knows about the Smiling Brothers!"

Sandor turned his burning eyes upon her and moved towards her on what she saw now were the crooked hind legs of a beast. He knelt down and grasped the golden bars, the metal bubbling almost immediately as he channelled his heat into them. With the heat went the dog, and Sandor returned to his naked human shape as the bars collapsed and melted around her. Then the smoke was there again, drifting around her and the room, and covering the exhausted man in his nakedness as he slumped before her.

She stepped out of the remains of the cage and walked proudly towards the cowering mage, the smell of urine a vile haze around him. Flames were rising in the room, and they didn't have long, especially as she could feel the pull of the curse again, now that she was out of the cage.

"What do we need to know?" Malakor looked up at her with the face of a broken man.

"Here, take this. This is where I've written everything I know about them" He passed her a leather bound book. "Take it and be gone. I am finished with this life. Finished with running and hiding. Finished with power and all that it brings."

Sansa took the book from him and turned back to Sandor. He was starting to realise quite how many flames were in the room. Whatever fury had possessed him in his rescue was gone, and the man was back. The man who was mortally afraid of fire.

She grabbed a robe where it hung over the back of a chair and went to him, sweeping it over him before taking his hands.

"It's time to go my brave, brave guardian."

He followed her mutely out of the room, a silent giant following a small bird. And the sound of Malakor's sobbing drifted after the strange companions.

***

SANDOR

He was hollow. There was nothing left inside of him but dust and ash.

He followed the bird back to the Black Snake, his eyes taking in its swooping and fluttering but not really seeing anything. The bird guided them away from the busier parts of town but a few times strangers crossed their path, and his normal wariness almost came back as they passed their eyes over him. But then… if anyone had found the bodies at Malakor's estate they would suspect a ravening beast, not this ghost of a man devoid of wits.

Although… he'd had wits enough to get his body between Sansa and the corpse of the herald. He regretted every single death, every single time his teeth had torn into a guileless serving girl or steward. But he regretted that death most of all. The fat boy had run and he had chased him down, grabbing at his heels with teeth and fire. The corpse was half burnt, and the half that was not reminded him of the butcher's boy in the North. He'd hunted down that boy because he'd been ordered to. This boy… the rage inside him had killed this boy.

When he had realised that Sansa was gone, the bird no longer fluttering alongside them or perching on his shoulder as he was used to, he'd panicked of course. He did every time she was not by his side. But there had also been a certainty of the danger she was in. A feeling deep in his gut that made him want to puke or to hit something very hard. And he had. In the Black Snake, after they'd arranged a room, he'd found a blank space on the wall to take his fist. Mouse had cowered, expecting a beating no doubt, but he hadn't taken the rage out on him. The herald had borne it.

The fire came when he called it, as Sansa talked about calling the smoke. But the fire was greedier than Sansa's smoke and had taken his shape and given him the dog's. And it had given him flames inside of him that burnt the man away entirely. When the fire was gone, when the dog was gone, there was not much of the man left at all.

But the dog had found her, tasting the scent of the curse on the air as the novice had done in Oldtown. He would swear that his sense was a thousand times stronger than the novice's had been. At the time he felt as though could track her anywhere, across any kingdom, or any sea… so strong was the scent and the taste of her power in his nose and in his mouth. Even if that Malakor shit had blocked her from it with that cage that smelled so bloody wrong to this new sense.

And now… now he could barely feel the breeze on his skin, nor the touch of Malakor's flowing robe on his back. Everything was dulled, and he felt half dead.

They reached the Black Snake and a waiting Mouse. He was out the front, squatting in the dust as a small crowd of other vagabond children watched his little wooden figures act out the tales of the Patchwork Knight. Normally Sandor would have smiled grimly at the boy's antics, but he felt nothing. Mouse looked up at them, seeing him and his blank face and looked scared. He left the children and came over, smiling up at the bird when he spotted her.

"A happy ending mi'lord!"

"Not for everyone" The herald's burnt face was in his mind's eye again. "Did you do as I ordered?"

"It's all arranged. It cost some coin…"

Sandor looked about. "Is there a back way into the tavern?"

"Follow me…"

He put one foot in the other, following the boy down an alley to the rear of the building where he took them in through a servant's door and into the rear of the common room. The bird swept down onto his shoulder, and through the thin silk of Malakor's robe he felt the pin pricks of her claws there. And it was suddenly as though all feeling was concentrated there, in that tiny pain. He started to feel himself returning.

In the common room a crowd of drinkers was watching a young man playing a mandolin, his fingers cascading over the strings like the tumbling sound of water. The music filled his senses and it urged on his re-awakening. When the cascade turned into a bawdy song of Dorne he did not recognise, he felt the blood pumping around his body again, the rhythm of the men's feet hammering on the wooden floors echoing his heartbeat. It was only then that he realised that the man leaning over the mandolin was a really a woman with close cropped curling hair, her clothes and manner suggesting a sailor more than a lady.

"Dornishwomen!" he muttered under his breath and moved on into shadows.

They skirted the back of the room, avoiding eyes, and made their way quickly up the stairs to their room. Sandor was pleased to see the two tubs waiting for them, the steam still rising up from them. Mouse looked far less happy.

"I don't… I mean… Do I have to?!"

Sandor looked down at the boy. He was more dirt than boy.

"I will bathe in one, our lady in the other… when she joins us. And then you will return and bathe in her water."

Mouse started to stutter some excuses but Sandor silenced him with a look.

"Go now, play with the entertainers downstairs." He aimed a lazy kick at the boy's behind but he was already running out the room.

He tore off the robe once the bird had chosen a perch, and near crawled into one of the tubs. Every part of him was either dirty, blood stained or aching. The heat worked its way into his muscles as the filth floated from him and rose to the surface of the water. He closed his eyes wearily.

"How many times do you think you can save me?"

He kept his eyes closed, smiling wryly.

"How many more times are you going to get yourself into trouble Little Bird? As long as its not one more than the bloody number of times I can save you, I believe we will be all right."

He heard her moving around the room, walking closer. They'd set the two tubs by each other's side, a gap between them of a foot or so. Any moment he might open his eyes and see her there beside him. He heard the fall of clothes onto the floor, and gave it a few moments more for her modesty's sake.

But when he opened his eyes she was not in the tub beside him, but standing at the end of them. And she was completely naked.

He sat up in shock, the water of the tub swirling around him.

"Girl…" his voice was a warning, but she just stood there, an arm across her breasts, a hand covering her… covering her. He looked away, the habit of guarding her modesty too strong.

"Look at me."

Her voice was gentle, sweet even, but he could not help but remember the times he had growled those very words at her in rage, demanding she see quite how horrific he truly was. He cautiously turned his face back towards her. As horrific as he was, she was the opposite. Her skin was cream and silk, the half-light before the dark turning it a glowing shade. She had filled out into a woman's shape while he had known her in King's Landing, but that had been bound by those fussy corsets ladies wore. He saw now that even unbound her waist was narrow and her stomach flat… too flat. He could make out the edges of her ribs under the forearm that covered her breasts. He knew their journey had been hard on her, and he swore to put some more meat on her bones. But in part that thought was an attempt to ignore the swelling of her breasts above her arm as she covered them. And the freckles that decorated the delicate planes of her chest. Oh those freckles, they'd haunted him after he'd had to tear off her dress on the road to Oldtown. He felt his manhood stir and rise and cursed himself in his mind.

He looked up into her eyes, those stunning eyes of blue, and felt himself completely lost. He already suspected how much she meant to him, but in that look he gave himself over completely. It was not defiant, it was not proud, but it was certain. She was showing herself to him, because this was what she wanted to do.

"Is this my reward, girl?"

She blushed a little and he saw the colour bloom on her chest. Seven fucking hells! He was glad of the depth of the tub as he felt himself become even more aroused.

"That sounds such a crass way of putting it…"

"Aye, that's me. But this is not you. Why are you doing this?"

She bit her lip in thought, and he could see goosebumps rising on her arms.

"Because I can. Because there are other things I cannot give you… Because I want to."

"Come girl, get in the tub before you freeze!"

"Yours or mine…?"

He shifted again at that suggestion, his situation was becoming… uncomfortable.

"That kind of joke ain't fair of you… my lady!"

She nodded, her dark curtain of hair falling slightly over her face.

"Forgive me." She sighed and moved towards the tubs. He made a show of holding his hands over his eyes as she got into the one beside him. However, when he opened his eyes he realised that she had chosen to sit with her back at the opposite end to him, facing him in his tub. The water lapped at the swell of her breasts, and truly, this was not getting easier for him.

"Well, this is cosy." He rubbed a sliver of soap over his arms.

"I truly do not know why more taverns don't have two tubs" She delicately swirled a hand through the water.

"Indeed. This and a large glass of wine a piece and we'd be set."

"Set for what… my lord?"

"Has anyone told you that you are a flirt… my lady?"

"No. No one. Never." She smiled and for a moment there was a hint of the wolf about her that made him shiver. Seven fucking hells.

***

SANSA

She crept down the wooden stairs with the lightest of steps, carrying a candle in its cup in one hand and keeping the other hand out to gently touch the walls of the tavern as she went. She was doing it again. The voice in her head telling her that she shouldn't be doing this was his voice. His growl and bark calling her stupid for sneaking out again.

But she could only think that King's Landing was to blame, where she'd been watched and followed and restricted to only a few rooms and to fewer companions. Here, on the coast of Dorne, just as on the road, she had to spread her wings and see… everything. And after a fruitless hour of reading Malakor's book by candle light as Mouse and the dog snored on the bed, she needed something to distract her. Malakor hadn't really known much more than what they have gathered so far. His steel voice was in her head again, swearing at the fake mage; bloody fool had spent seventy years tracking down information and most of what he'd scribbled into his book with cheap quills had been obvious hearsay and rumour! Yes, there was something in there about how the Smiling Brothers could pull the essence of a person out of them and shape it into a stone through which they could control them, as though they were puppets. This 'leashing' horrified her… but at the same time she could imagine sneaking into Joffrey's rooms in the Red Keep and leashing the little… king… and at one stroke end the war for her brother and the seven kingdoms.

There was also a little written about the vile sacrifices that they made on the new moon, with Malakor's spidery hand seeming to get more erratic as he scrawled graphic details of that. But beyond that… the Smiling Brothers seemed to be fanciful creatures that some had heard of, but that none had ever really seen. Or seen and survived to tell of it.

Sansa had been wearily rubbing her eyes and thinking of making some space on the bed next to the dog, when the music had returned downstairs. The loud and lewd patrons had departed a few hours after Sandor had left his tub and suffered his change. That was also hours after she had dressed and settled down with the book and the candle, trying to concentrate on her reading over the sound of the revels. Then later, after it had gone quiet, she had heard the cascading notes of the mandolin again, drifting up on the night air. Gentler than the crude songs the patrons had requested, this new music was the sound of the player lovingly caressing the mandolin. And Sansa wanted to hear properly.

Rounding the bottom of the stairs Sansa saw the woman silhouetted again the single torch still lit in its sconce. She was curved over her instrument as before, but this time she was also crooning a wordless melody to go with the tumbling notes. Sansa drew nearer, still holding to the shadows.

"Join me, my lady. The shadows are ill companions, compared to me, I promise." The woman looked up as she beckoned Sansa closer. Sansa was taken by the twinkling sea salt green eyes of the woman and did not immediately answer. Some might have thought her a man, with her leathers and the shortness of her hair, but the eyes were two almond jewels winking at her. Then the woman fully winked.

"Are you some flame haired spirit or passing deity I've enchanted with my music?"

"Forgive me… I shouldn't disturb you."

"I am Mezzi Sand, and there is little in the gods' realms that disturb me. My mother was of the greenblood, and my father was a lord, and between them they rutted me into creation." She bowed briefly, a curt nod of the head, and then went back to stroking the strings under her fingertips.

"Do you play….?" She didn't look up as she spoke, and for a moment Sansa was sure her voice and that of the mandolin's were one and the same.

"Only… only the high harp." She stuttered awkwardly, cursing her clumsiness. She was out of touch with her courtesies it seemed.

"Ah, so I was right on first guess. A lady comes to the Black Snake and to Mezzi" The woman was not actually that much older than her Sansa judged as she stepped closer. Her skin was a darker shade like some Dornish folk's, but clear and unlined. And under her leathers her body was curved as Sansa sometimes wished hers could be; the kind of hips and chest that some of the serving girls of Kings Landing had, but few of the highborn ladies.

"I am not… I am not a lady." Sansa drifted closer to the table where Mezzi sat, and finally she took courage in hand and took a chair there also, just around the corner of the table from the woman. Mezzi put the mandolin aside and pushed an odd shaped bottle and a tiny tumbler towards her.

"Prove it" The Dornishwoman winked as Sansa picked up the glass and looked at it with curiousity.

"This is not for wine…?"

"Gods no… this is the kind of spirit I can summon. Its dovcha from Myr. Good stuff." She reached across and poured Sansa a generous measure. "Drink it in one, or the spirit in the bottle will get you!"

Sansa picked up the small tumbler and looked at the greenish liquid with suspicion.

"Just bloody well neck it my lady!"

Sansa complied. For a moment Mezzi had sounded a rather lot like the Hound, and Sansa obeyed automatically, putting the glass to lips and tipping it all in. But her eyes watered painfully as the liquid scorched its way down her throat. Mezzi laughed loudly.

"It looks like the spirit in the bottle had its way with you any way, my lady." She threw back her own glass without hesitation. Sansa was still trying to breath, and finally made a strange 'gah' sound.

"What… in the… seven hells!" Sansa stuggled to speak, but then a wave of warmth crashed over her and she found herself looking at the bottle and considering another one… or more than one.

"Your name buys you another one, my lady."

"Jeyne… Jeyne Hill."

Mezzi poured out the spirit and Sansa tried to throw it back with the same carefree abandon, but paused before it reached her mouth.

"Go on my sweet Jeyne… you've done the hardest part now, you've lost your maidenhood."

Sansa blushed slightly, but swallowed the drink as Mezzi looked at her speculatively. Sansa felt the same wave of warmth again, but this one met the one in her stomach and the two of them seemed to be getting on famously. She smiled broadly as that odd thought occurred to her and almost giggled. Mezzi was leaning closer, and pouring her another already.

"You Westerosi… guarding your maidenhoods like gems in a chest."

Sansa swallowed and looked into the woman's eyes. "Have you… have you lain with many men?"

Mezzi laughed, "Have I lain with many men? Hells girl, if you can't even use the right words how will you ever do the deed?" Sansa looked down, the spirit making every action feel overdone and exaggerated as though her head was a hundred fold bigger. And the room was spinning a little too.

"Yes, I've lain with a few men. Fucked them too. The ones that interested me for more than a moment." Mezzi was looking closely at her, and Sansa could feel the heat spreading on her cheeks again. An image of Sandor's face when she'd shown herself to him earlier flashed in her mind. Why was this Dornishwoman reminding her so much of the Hound?

"Do you know how to… please them?"

Mezzi coughed and spat out some of the spirit. She wiped a quick hand across her lips and looked back at Sansa, smirking.

"You've got it backwards Jeyne of the Hill. You learn how to please yourself first and then you know what to ask them to do." She winked as Sansa felt hot and flustered. "Sweet Jeyne, do you know how to please yourself?"

"I… I think I've had too much of the duvchi…"

"Its dovcha… and I think if you need the spirit in to ask such a question, then the answer is no. I imagine a high lady such as yourself had a septa who told you that only common women would do such a thing. Or only whores maybe."

Sansa nodded mutely. And she hadn't even tried anything… like that. Septa Mordane had just told her stories about the sins of lower women. And of how the gods frowned on such things. A lady should only care of her husband's needs… and her needs would be met through the children she had to give him… suddenly that seemed to be incredibly unfair to Sansa, and a sharp black thought aimed at her duty to her brother's cause sparked in her mind before she quickly squashed it down. Mezzi appeared not to notice the black look that passed across Sansa's face like a Summer storm.

"I had a septa once. Back when my father thought to claim me and give me a name other than Sand… He bought me dresses and paid her to make me a lady. Both realised quite quickly that it would be easier to make a pig a lady than me… and that using me to make a political marriage would most like backfire when I stuck him with a blade on my wedding night." Sansa gasped, "Well, better that then let him stick me with his own blade…"

Sansa blushed again and Mezzi looked closely at her. "Have you not even seen a man's own blade?!"

Sansa shock her head dumbly, but thought back to the times Sandor had changed and she had been tempted to look…

"Some women care muchly for them… I am less inclined. But the man attached to it can make me more interested" A though seemed to occur to her then and she smiled darkly, leaning in to pour more of the dovcha. "And have you seen your own women's parts fair Jeyne?"

Sansa struggled to stand, near knocking the table over.

"Sit… sit. Oh those septas… they whisper their dark little shames into our ears and damage generations. There's nothing so terrible about that place between your legs!"

Sansa sat, taking the tumbler in hand and drinking again. What had Sandor said…? "I know that… some curse word she couldn't repeat… prize between your legs is for your brother to give away!" Then when she'd called him disgusting he'd said something like…"It aint disgusting if you do it right!" And then he'd kissed her for the first time, so gently that she'd felt parts of her… down there… blossom and awaken.

"What does it feel like? When a man touches you down there?"

Mezzi laughed slyly into her glass. "If those septas knew how good it can be, maybe they'd never have taken their vows." Mezzi leant closer and whispered in Sansa's ear. "If he does it right, if he does it the way you like… it can feel like dying and coming to life all at the same time."

She placed a gentle hand on Sansa's knee and Sansa looked down at it as though from a great height, the mix of heady spirits and Mezzi's green eyes swirling together as the Dornishwoman pushed her skirts up, her long musician's fingers finding their way beneath them. Sansa closed her eyes as fingertips drifted up her inner thigh, circling paths towards…

But it was his hand upon her she imagined. The memory of his kisses on her neck. His gruff naming of her. "Little Bird", "Little Bird", his deep voice echoed in her mind as the woman touched her.

The woman stopped suddenly and leant back in her chair. Sansa opened her eyes and looked at her in confusion.

"Ah sweet Jeyne. I could show you a few tricks… teach you how to take yourself to pieces with the touch of your hand. But it would not be me you'd wish to sing for." She looked a little sad as she picked up the mandolin again and started to race her fingers across the strings. "But heed what I said. Don't get it backwards. You please yourself first, and please him after. And maybe, if he's the kind of man who doesn't like a woman who knows what she likes… maybe you come back to Salt Shore and come see Mezzi who loves women who know."

Sansa was for a moment silenced by her surprise. She had heard rumours that some women liked other women, but had not thought she could gain the attention of one. She felt hot and flushed, flattered and shocked all at one. And in her muddle she stood quickly, threw Mezzi a clumsy curtsey and a muttered thanks, before scampering back towards the stairs, followed by the sound of Mezzi's voice and her mandolin singing together, mournfully.

***

SANDOR

The dog woke to a strange sound coming from behind the door of the privy in their tavern room. While his human wits took their time to identify the noise, his dog nose wrinkled at the smell, a combination of sharp high scents the human in the dog recognised all too well. He leapt from the bed, making Mouse stir a little in his sleep and roll over, flopping his arms above his head. The dog padded over to the privy door, but it resisted his attempts to push it open with his paws, his claws skittering down the wood. He whined, the noise escaping his dog throat even if the human disliked its pitiful sound.

"Go away…" a muffled but wretched voice came through from the other side.

He sat on his haunches and waited. The night was greying, and it was not long before the first bloody sparks came and the fire twisted him back into the man. Sweating after the effort, he still threw on his clothes and then hesitated, before knocking at the door.

"My head hurts… don't shout at me."

Mouse was sitting up now in the bed, rubbing eyes and pushing back his hair, and Sandor barked an order at him. "Sausages, greasy as you like. Bread. And something sweet to drink. Now."

The retching sound came again, followed by a distraught moan.

"She got a baby in her belly? 'appened like that with my moth- with other ladies."

"Food, boy! Now!" Mouse scampered out of the room and away done the stairs.

"What were you drinking girl?" He crouched down by the door, resting knuckles on the floor, enough of the dog still in him to affect how he moved.

"Oh gods… Are you angry? You must be angry."

"Open the door girl."

The door creaked slowly open and he saw her huddled in a corner of the privy, pale of face, and with eyes that either cried or watered from the upheavals of her stomach. Maybe both.

He came in and knelt beside her.

"What was it?"

"Dov…. dovcha." She suddenly pulled herself to the edge of the privy and retched. He moved cautiously, but gathered up her hair in one hand, while the other rubbed the length of her back over her the lacings of her dress.

"Seven hells" he breathed. "You're lucky you've not awoken blind drinking that liquid fire, lass. Who gave you that shit?"

She wiped a hand across her mouth when she seemed to realise nothing more was coming out, and looked up at him with glassy eyes. "Don't be angry. Please."

"Some man was it?" His eyes narrowed, but inside he felt his heart freeze.

"The mandolin player… the woman."

"Fucking Dornishwomen!" he swore breathily.

"She was being friendly…"

"I'm sure I know just how friendly… Come on lass." Before she could protest he picked her up and took her to the rumpled sheets of the bed and lay her down. She turned to bury her head there, red of cheek. At least where they weren't looking green.

He considered her for a moment, before lying down beside her, stretching out his legs, and resting his head back onto his folded arms. He remembered how satisfying it had to punch that smug Braavosi captain in the face after he'd shown an interest in her. But he knew that had been a mistake… and even old dogs needed to learn new things occasionally.

"Did you… did you want to be friendly to her too?"

Sansa sat up suddenly, holding a hand to her head as the room swam.

"It wasn't like that! Not for me anyway… She was helpful."

"Oh I'm sure she wanted to help you out, my lady." Sansa's face flashed rage and he held up his hands in apology. "Sorry, that weren't fair."

Sansa sighed. "I didn't even know such women even existed… Have you known… such women?"

Sandor rubbed his face, unwilling to answer.

"Tell me…?"

"There's whores… the expensive sort… who'll play at it for coin. Some might even be like that. Can't say I blam'em. Women are softer and sweeter than men. Especially if you're a whore. Or if you're a lady married to a knight who's fucking his way around the kingdoms while you're home bringing up his brood of whelps." He looked down at her wide eyed face, her innocence shining in those damned blue eyes, even after a night of drinking dovcha. "She touch you, lass?"

"Are you going to hurt her? Like you did Captain Denaro?"

"No, my word to you. Maybe you deserve something softer and sweeter than this old dog-"

She cut off his words by taking his hands in hers. "She touched me, only a little on my leg, but I thought of you. Of your fingers…there…"

He looked away, both happy at her words and thinking of his Little Bird and the mandolin player. Together. He was confused and… gods damn him, stiffening in his breeches! He tried to brush those thoughts away.

"She also told me I should learn how to please myself, before I try to please anyone else…"

Seven fucking hells, the thought of her pleasing herself was worse. He shifted on the bed, wishing he had a free hand to pull sheets across him.

"Aye, she might be right on that…" He shifted again and he saw her thinking.

"Am I embarrassing you…?"

He wanted to tell her the truth of how men thought, but that would shock and maybe disgust her. He wasn't embarrassed by her talk, he wanted to lean over and capture her lips and use his hands where the Dornishwoman had, and then take them up to that place she was thinking to explore and to show her how a man could touch her. But there was always something standing between them… and it made his words bitter and angry.

"Might be one day you'll be glad to know about these things. When you're wed to your brother's choice, and he's some old knight who cares nothing for your pleasure, my lady." He took his hands from hers and sat up on the edge of the bed, his back to her.

He was surprised then to feel the slight weight of her as she wrapped her arms about him and rested her cheek against his back. She whispered against him there, her words so full of sadness his heart ached.

"Sometimes when you call me my lady it's like a kiss. And sometimes it's like a slap."

He turned quickly then, thinking to take her in his arms and to lie with her again on the bed, resting over her as gave her the kisses she deserved… his lady, his beautiful lady.

But she was smoke, and gone from his grasp as he moved to hold her.


	14. Chapter 14

MOUSE

He watched the Patchwork Knight stagger towards the gangplank with his heart in his mouth. As the large man pushed past Captain Denaro with a muttered curse, some of the Courtesan's Wish's crew leant over the rail of the ship to consider his weaving progress, placing bets on when he'd fall off. There was Elleri Prettyboy, Lothos and Bloodsworn. All three wore new bruises on their faces, but Mouse was glad to see they'd made it back to the ship in one piece after their revels on shore. He wasn't sure the knight was going to though… so Mouse offered a quick prayer to the Mother to keep the large man on the plank and away from the cold depths of the harbour…

He walked up behind the knight, adjusting to the sway of the gangplank as the his heavy stomping feet rattled it. Mouse cradled the little bird in his hands. She'd been sleeping on and off since the knight had come downstairs in the tavern seeking his squire, the bird nestled against his neck barely opening her weary blue eyes. Mouse had been badgering the serving girls to fill his master's order for food, but they'd spun away from him to serve men who had coin to tip them with in return for their winks and giggles. Mouse had been worried when the knight turned up and he had not done as asked, but he was learning slowly that the knight's bark was worse than his bite. He only sometimes clipped him around the ear, and this time he just grunted and said gruffly that their lady had gone away for now, and that they wouldn't need the greasy food he'd asked for anyway.

Then Mouse had watched as the knight had snuck glances around the tavern, seeking someone out. He covered it with his usual disinterested, flat look, but Mouse could tell he was eager for… something. Finally he seemed to catch what he wanted to find, frowned slightly and took a seat at an empty table. Mouse hopped up onto the chair next to him.

"Breakfast, ser?" He looked up expectantly, but the knight was staring at someone. It wasn't a glare as such. It reminded him of how his brother would circle an opponent in the ring before tackling him and raining fists into his bare chest. Mouse followed the knight's stare with wide eyes to where the mandolin player was standing with customers, a pitcher in her hand, and laughing at some tall tale from an old sailor. A serving girl bustled over, smiling uncertainly at the knight in his hooded cloak, the shadows covering much of his face.

"Breakfast, mi'lord?"

"Dovcha."

The young girl seemed taken aback. "I don't think we got any of-"

"Dovcha. Ask yer mistress." The serving girl scuttled off. The knight looked to him then.

"Is she asleep?" Mouse looked up to where the bird nested on his shoulder.

"Aye ser."

"Good. Mind you sleep too. Close yer ears and your mind. This talk aint for you."

Mouse nodded. He knew from past experience with his brother when it was best to pretend to be asleep. Osric'd stagger in some nights… back when they'd had a roof to sleep under… stagger in full of the red rage and try to find some excuse to work his fists on him. Sleep was a shield sometimes. That and being as quiet as his namesake, or having a bolt hole to run to…

He watched the serving girl talking to the mandolin player, who turned on her words and stared at the knight. He nodded back to her, and she came over after instructing the serving girl of something. As she walked over Mouse saw the silvery glint of something at the tops of her green leather boots. Knives.

"Morning mi'lord. Don't believe I know you."

"Is that a reason not to share a drink with me?"

"Dovcha you being wanting? Sun's nowhere near over the yard arm yet. Why not some breakfast. On the house. The Black Snake likes to reward its better behaved customers…"

"No. Dovcha. Surely you'll be needing the hair of the dog this morning?"

The woman paused at his comment, and then gestured back to the serving girl, who ran off quickly.

"Ah, so I believe we have a friend in common." She smiled as she rested a boot on another one of the chairs and played with a buckle at her knee. The silver of the daggers flashed and winked at Mouse. He tried to nudge the knight, but he shushed him with a gesture.

"Not sure you should call her your friend. Seems to me like men… or women… who need alcohol to work their way into…"

He stopped as the serving girl returned with an oddly shaped bottle and two small glasses. The mandolin player pulled the stopper out with her teeth and sat down opposite the knight. Mouse was between them and he watched with a worried heart as she poured out a measure for each of them, the pungent smell of the drink making his eyes water.

"If you were angry with me… mi'lord… you'd not have approached me here, in my own place. I'd have been walking down to the harbour one evening maybe when you found me in the shadows… So I know this ain't about a man's violence. If it's about warning me away from your sweet Jeyne, you wouldn't be the first man to try and claim what ain't truly his…"

"She ain't mine… and she sure as hell ain't yours!" He drank his serving of the pale green drink and let her fill it up again. "Can you keep up?"

She nodded and drank her own, refilling it again quickly.

"I have to say… you're not what I imagined."

"And what was that?"

"She's so graceful and… easily embarassed… I did think you might be one of those shaven chested, prancing, lords. A silken thing like those fucking embroidered animals you lot all love to wear. But you… you got dirt under your nails, and some of its old blood."

She drank hers down, and the knight did likewise. She re-poured for the two of them.

"So she ain't yours… and she ain't mine. Whose is she? Who are you guarding her for then? Guarding her like a bloody dog…?"

The knight paused. Mouse looked up at his face, trying to read him as she was doing. But all he could see was the twist of his scars in the shadow of his hood.

"Her brother."

"Where I come from we drink for lies. And for truths too sometimes, it has to be said." They both downed their glasses. A raw sound came from the woman's mouth and she shivered. "Gods, it's too soon for this again…"

"If you want to quit?" The knight's words were very slurred now, and he was gripping the table top with one hand.

"Now? When you're a drink from being under the table? Never!" She smiled, and Mouse was reminded of the few times he'd seen the knight smile. They were always dark, wry and fleeting things.

"Who do you really guard her for?"

"Herself. Okay, you happy? I guard her for herself!"

"Happier than I was this morning in me privy." She leant back, holding the glass under her mouth as she considered him.

"So you ain't angry. You ain't here to scare me off. You ain't even protecting her for someone else's claim on that seven blessed maidenhood…"

Something the knight did caught the woman's eye, some twitch or movement on his face that Mouse had not caught, and she leant forward suddenly until she was just in front of his face.

"I see now. I see why you want to drink with Mezzi. Why the girl wanted to drink with Mezzi. Bastards eh? Born out of passion so we are the creatures of passion. You want to know how to please her!"

"Mouse. Cover your ears."

He made a show of putting his hands over his ears, but he let the words in.

"You don't know shit."

"No, that's it. She gets enough spirit in her to ask me about how to please a man…. And you needed the same thing to get around to asking how to please her… Well, tell me that ain't so? Tell me that you've ever been with a woman and known her song was more than a mummer's trick?"

He went to stand up, but the dovcha dragged him back to the chair, making him unsteady and unsure. Mezzi lowered her voice and whispered.

"It might be the green spirit talking through me… but you interest me mi'lord. You got scars on your face, and blood under your nails. And I'm guessing there's a forest of hair on that broad chest of yours that goes all the way down to…"

He growled and poured himself another glass. The woman copied, and they matched drink for drink again.

"I could show you… I could show you how to teach the girl to sing."

Mouse was confused, their lady was very good at singing… she sang him hymns when he couldn't sleep!

"That ain't… that ain't what I want!"

"True… you want her. A right pair you and the sweet Jeyne are. Two romantics in a world where romance dies bloody. So why not grab it while you can. Grab me on your way if it suits you. Been a while since I had a man between my thighs but I'm betting you haven't had a woman in a while neither. And I'll show you how it all works with a woman who wants you."

The knight stood up again, this time pushing away from the table and making it shriek across the stone floor, spilling the last of the dovcha. The bird fluttered and awoke, darting to Mouse's shoulder. The other patrons of the Black Snake turned at the noise, and a few let hands drift to daggers and swords. Mezzi held up a hand and they relaxed.

"The man can't hold his drink. But any of you take advantage of that I'll skin you alive. This one's mine. Hear me?!" The few men holding weapons resettled, and Mouse thought he saw angry glances flashed at his lord knight.

"Go on, go ser knight. Get back to your lady. Maybe together you two can learn what Mezzi knows already." She winked at him and the knight growled, turning heel and storming out of the doors. Mouse collected the few bags they had and bowed quickly to the woman, the bird keeping its perch but flapping its wings to do so.

"They'll die bloody you know. All romantic fools do in the end. Best get away from them before they get you stabbed little man."

Mouse went to go. But after a few steps he paused, and turned back to her. "That aint so my lady mandolin player. The Seven tell me that aint so."

Then he ran after the knight and guided him all the way back to the Courtesan's Wish, where the large man finally passed over the gangplank with unsteady feet and crashed into their cabin to fall onto the bed and quickly into a sleep punctuated with resounding snores.

***

SANDOR

He was riding Stranger. The feeling of the horse's muscles shifting beneath him was so familiar that it took him a moment to realise that this was one of Sansa's sendings. He was mounted on the destrier, and to his right his lady was mounted on a pale grey palfrey; smaller, gentler, and prancing on shining hooves. A ride across rolling hills, then. Pleasant enough, he supposed. He turned to look at her, taking in the silken red flow of her hair, the fine purple dress she'd imagined for herself, the long line of her neck rising to her face…

Then he knew this was no sending of Sansa's. Her face was a pale mask made from some pale bone or ivory. Her mouth and eyes were frozen in a look of terror.

He looked around quickly, seeking for the danger, but saw only the rolling green of the hills and stony mountains overlooking them. Ahead a campfire burned, getting closer as the horses trotted towards it. He tried to pull on Stranger's bridle to turn him away, but nothing happened, his arms did not belong to him here. His legs were also dead and useless when he tried to jump from his back. So the campfire just came closer and closer…

When they were upon it, Sandor saw empty bed rolls and a dying fire. Whatever fear gripped him was not to be found here.

Then, from where he knew not, a dog charged at them, bounding on long legs to catch up with the two horses. He'd never seen himself properly in his dog shape but he recognised the great beast with the burnt face immediately… who else could it be? Following after, swooping on wings of golden brown and scarlet, came the songbird. The dog took to keeping pace with the palfrey while the bird landed on his shoulder, bursting into a discordant song that raised the hairs on his arms.

The campfire drifted away behind them as Sandor saw ahead of them a patch of colour laid out on the ground. As they drew closer he recognised the many colours of the damned motley cloak she'd made him. It had been spread out like a blanket and placed upon it was a grand feast of all the northern dishes she'd imagined for him back on the ship.

The horses stopped and he found his legs freed to move at last. He dismounted quickly and went immediately to her side. She reached out with stiff arms as though asking for his help to get down from the grey. He took her tiny waist in his hands and lifted her down. And then the dog, the Hound, the bird and the Little Bird, sat neatly at their outdoor banquet.

Sandor couldn't shake the ever increasing chill in his bones. Something was very wrong. No… all of this was wrong!

Sansa's face was calm again, her rose petal lips now closed and her eyes blue and clear again. But when she spoke finally those sweet lips did not move.

"We could stay here, my lord. Could we not?"

He looked to the distance. Silhouetted against the horizon was a stone structure, atop a jagged rise. Immediately he knew those square battlements and that winding mountain path that led towards it. There was only one keep in the lands that gave him this feeling of dread deep down in his stomach. He turned to her to say that they should of course stay… when the alternative was going to that seven times damned place… but the words stuck in his throat. Her face was frozen again in that look of fear, her staring eyes fixed towards the horizon and the keep. But when he turned back to look at it its blocky shapes had been stretched into pointed and elegant nonsenses and the walls were a dusky red… like dried blood. It was the Red Keep of Kings Landing.

A deep growl came from he knew not where. It was not the growl of the dog, but louder, the song of a predator, a sound he'd heard once before on a hunting trip near Casterley Rock when he was but a child. A lion.

He was about to get to his feet when out of one of the dishes ran a mouse that scampered up his arm and sat on the other shoulder to the bird. Then, suddenly, hundreds of thousands of mice tumbled out from behind bottles, from under plates, and from beneath the patchwork cloak. The Sansa-doll stayed seated, her legs delicately curled beneath her. But then, in his shocked move away from the sea of mice, he knocked into her and she fell over, shattering into thousands of pieces!

The bird on his shoulder took to wing and sang a joyous, pealing song.

He remounted Stranger quickly and the horse cantered forward again, heading onwards to the place that was at one moment Clegane's Keep and the next the Red Keep, depending on how he looked at it, like the ever changing facets of a gem. The lion was out there still, and its growl was joined by the booming bellow of some other creature. But as he led the strange menagerie through the valley… the dog, the bird, the mouse, and the army of mice… fear fled from him and the sky cleared. Then he saw the mountains around them properly for the first time. They were the grey legs of impossibly massive statues. Seven of them, standing over the rolling green and lining their path towards the shifting keep. Seven mute watchers.

He felt her arms around him then, the slight weight of her against his back. He clasped her arms with a gauntleted hand, and…

He woke up.

He was aboard the Courtesan's Wish. And he was going to throw up.

He sat up quickly and a bucket was placed into his hands. But he held it back somehow, cursing himself for thinking to drink so much bloody dovcha. He felt her small hand moving over his back as he curled over the bucket and spat into it.

"You're lucky you've not awoken blind drinking that liquid fire… at least that's what someone told me." He looked up in the darkening light of the cabin to where she knelt beside him on the bed, a wry smile on her lips.

He grunted and she pushed back a strand of hair from his face.

"I was asleep. So I don't know if you were trying to defend my honour… or some other nonsense…?"

"It weren't anything like that!"

"And the woman… Mezzi? Did you hurt her?"

He spat again, the bile rising in his mouth no worse than how he felt knowing she thought that of him. "No lass. She's well. We had a… friendly chat is all."

"A friendly chat. And many a glass of that spirit, it seems." She took his hand and lay back on the bed, pulling him with her.

"Girl…" His voice was a warning, but still, he lay down beside her.

"You were dreaming. And it was not of my making. And I could not get to you when I tried…." The worry was clear on her face, and he was glad it was not that odd mask now, but changing quickly as he tried to reassure her.

"It were just a dream girl. The spirit in the bottle sent it no doubt." He ignored his unsettled stomach and pounding head, and drew closer to touch her hair. "Though, when I dream, your hair is red again. And long… so bloody long."

His hand went from her hair to her waist to pull her against him, feeling the shape of her against his chest and the comfort of having her head lie in the space underneath his scarred chin. The dream was fleeing from him, but the keep that was two nightmares in one remained with him as yet. As the first sparks started their journey up and down his spine, marking the start of his change, he admitted what the dream had him suspecting. What he had always suspected maybe…

One day they would have to go back to the places that scared them.

***

SANSA

The frown on Mouse's forehead was just as adorable as the small pink tip of his tongue that jutted out of his mouth as he struggled with the shapes on the parchment in front of him on the table. He jabbed at it with the quill, holding it in an aggressive fist as he scratched out a row of b's on the page. Some still had the round part at the front, and Sansa steeled herself to tell him for the hundredth or more time about the difference between b's and d's.

"I don't see why I gotta learnt to write as well! Can't we just stick with reading for now, and get around to writing when we're done with that?!"

Sansa held in her laughter. She vaguely recalled a similar argument from Rickon, but aimed then at the unswayed face of Maester Luwin.

"Sweetling, you have to learn them together."

"But why…?"

She couldn't remember Maester Luwin's response, and fell back onto the same argument she'd used when she'd first told him that the lessons were necessary.

"Because you do!"

The dog huffed his strange laughter as his muzzle rested on his paws.

"But… why! Got this far without daft squiggling lines and fat bellied d's…"

She looked down at his expressive face. He was so much like her brother sometimes. But she couldn't use the same arguments she would have used on Rickon. She could not tell him that as a son of Winterfell he had a duty to be educated, wise and well read. That one day, the gods forbid, the inheritance of the North might be his and he'd have to lead older men with years of reading and knowledge behind them. Men who'd want a Stark in Winterfell, but not an unlettered fool.

Mouse was never going to be a noble.

"One day, when we break this curse… one day, we'll head North to my family. And then, if it pleases him, my brother will make you a place there. You could be a steward, or a man at arms… but not if you can't read and make letters."

"I'm going to be an adventuring knight like my lord!"

"Well, your lord knows how to make letters and how to read them… I assume…"

The dog's head sprung up and he stared at her.

"Sorry… But I've never actually seen you do it…"

He barked once, low and contained to hide his presence in the cabin. Once for yes.

"There you go!" She was triumphant, that was the argument that would work. "If the Patchwork Knight can read and write then surely his squire must do as well!"

"Will I still be his squire when we go North?" Mouse looked downcast. "I'm of no name, and I know squires come from proper houses…"

Sansa hesitated, not knowing how to answer. She was afeared of what would happen to Sandor when they finally rid themselves of the vile septon's curse, let alone whether he'd have a squire still. She had no doubt he'd see her safe to Robb and her mother. And that she'd protect him with everything she had once they were there. But he had been the Lannisters' man from birth. Even if they didn't kill him on sight, they'd no doubt throw him in irons and bury him in the deepest, dankest cell they had before she even had a chance to speak for him!

Her heart ached at the thought. In the last few weeks since they'd left Salt Shore they'd fallen into a happy pattern… especially now that Mouse was over his seasickness. Their moments together as man and woman were full of hurried kisses and light caresses… once Mouse was sent to chores and errands…. At night she sometimes found herself smiling, running her fingers over her lightly swollen lips and remembering how he had gone from his wretched change to sweeping her onto the bed in a single motion. Sometimes he'd pull her to him as they stood, and she'd feel enveloped by safety for the first time since she and Joffrey had come across Arya and Mycah play fighting. He truly seemed as hungry for kisses as she was, and it was such sweet agony to be separated from him at each sunrise and set… sweet because she knew that once again the sun or moon would sail across the sky and they would change forms, freeing them to passionate kisses and hesitant caresses.

Mouse coughed, and she came back from recent memories of him pulling her across him on the bed to taste her mouth above him…

"Well?"

"I hope that my family… and my brother, the King in the North… will be grateful to the two brave men who brought me home. I will petition him to grant you any position you desire… so perhaps one day there will be a 'squire Mouse' in the North." The dog huffed in mockery again but Mouse went back to his scratchings with a smile on his face.

Sansa knew Sandor was cynical about that promise. But he came from a family… if you could call it such… where siblings had nothing but hatred for each other. But Robb was her brother and loved her dearly, she was certain of that. She would need all of that love to petition for Sandor's freedom, but likely only a very small amount of it to grant the charming little boy whatever his heart's desire was. He could be a squire in the North, but not Sandor's squire. Just as she would not be his lady.

All of Robb's love for her and his family together would not sway him from making a match for her… his campaign needed it.

Some nights she still crept out onto deck. Riveriil would often be there and usher the other men away before they noticed the small figure wearing the knight's cloak. He never came over to speak with her as he had done before, not since the storm and the Witch's Fire. But he would bow, at a distance, and she would return the courtesy. Then she'd enjoy the starlight and daydream that, since she could not actually see land, the kingdoms and their war did not exist. She would dream that she was just a free woman, like Mezzi perhaps, travelling as she wished. Loving as she wished. Spending stolen moments with a man who seemed to desire her kisses like a man desires water when he has been lost at sea. Or she would dream that she was a woman on a ship sailing to the cure to her malady… to a cure that would free her to kiss him always, both by day and night…

During the day she showed him some of her dreams, sending them to him as he slept. Simple little things they were, where the rest of the world, family and duty melted away. If he noticed how small the worlds that she created for them were… a tiny cottage in the woods, a holdfast with no name, a room above a tavern in a distant city far from the kingdoms… he never mentioned it. Just as he never asked for more than she could give him.

Mezzi's advice had haunted her for the first days after the Courtesan's Wish had left Salt Shore. But there was no privacy in a cabin where both dog and woman were stowaways and had to stay inside. So even though his kisses made parts of her… parts of her down there… bloom in ways she did not entirely understand, there was no possibility of exploring what that meant on her own.

A flush had risen on her cheeks and she tried to concentrate on Mouse's lesson again, calming the thoughts that ran through her head.

"Are you well my lady?" He was looking up at her with wide curiosity filled eyes. How much did the boy truly understand? He seemed to have accepted that she was Sandor's lady without any questioning of their marital status. He knew the new gods well… he spoke to them often enough… but he had never asked if they had been wed in the sight of them. It was just as though the Patchwork Knight needed his lady as he needed his bird. They were just two more parts of his story.

"I am well sweetling. Though it is late and perhaps we all need to sleep."

Mouse leapt up from the table with a smile and quickly put away the inks and quills he'd acquired from the Captain, before jumping onto the bed and making the dog grumble as he made space for the boy. Sansa smiled. Her strange little family brought her great happiness, and part of her wished this journey would not end… or this part at least. Here on the Courtesan's Wish she had found a small amount of safety and she cherished it as she cherished her moments with Sandor. But such moments were fleeting she had found. She tucked Mouse in and lay down beside him, straightening his ever messy hair as the dog settled on his other side.

"Captain Denaro says we're to stop at Tarth."

"Tarth?! Did he say why?" The dog looked up from its dozing and growled deep in its chest.

"All he said was that the Courtesan wishes that he makes coin on this journey."

Dread filled her veins with ice. Tarth, sworn to the Stormlands and House Baratheon. And after Renly's death, loyal to Stannis whose fleet had burnt green with fire in Blackwater Bay.

Land… and the Kingdoms… might not be visible yet, but it was coming.

***

SANDOR

"Tarth. Fucking Tarth"

Sandor stood as still as a statue as Stranger nickered and twitched beside him. He kept a firm hand on the horse's bridle and held him back from throwing his head. The harbour, if you could call it that, was drawing closer and Stranger was reacting eagerly to the drifting smells of land that were coming towards them on the breeze. Compared to Salt Shore and Oldtown… well the first was a chaotic maelstrom and the second was ordered and calm. Tarth was too small to be much of either. A few fishing boats bobbed against the grey stone walls, and there was one large warship anchored by the opening of the harbour to the sea. The Courtesan's Wish, with its elaborate carvings and flashy sails was a loud arrival and bound to draw attention. Sandor took in the tiny port town, and the hall on the hill above it and made a quick decision.

He looked down at Mouse. He was smiling at the harbour, excited about yet another bloody adventure. Well, see how much he likes a real 'adventure'.

"We'll be making camp in the hills, away from town."

"But… but…" Mouse looked crestfallen. "But ser… I aint a country mouse!"

"If the lady can sleep on the ground and learn to make a campfire then so can you boy."

He went to complain again, but Sandor had been thorough in teaching him his place. Wanted to play at squire did he? Then he'd do as his 'lord knight' bloody well wished of him!

Denaro had slithered over, bloody hells. They'd argued days ago about the plan to go to Tarth and it had nearly ended in fists again. The Braavosi couldn't trade in Sunspear, or at many of the main cities edging the Sea of Dorne. Something to do with a bounty on his ship… but he had a contact in Tarth who moved items on his behalf for some kind of a cut. Stopping at Sunspear hadn't fucking appealed anyway. Not with the Princess and that soft-headed Oakheart being there. It would be just their luck to be spotted by some King's Landing guard while they were finding a bolthole. Myrcella had been kinder and sweeter than her shit brother… and most like ten times the ruler he was going to be… But Myrcella had been afraid of him and his scars, even when he'd spoken to her civilly. She would not help them if the guards took them.

But Tarth… Fucking Tarth! Just some arse end of nowhere island which was known for fuck all. Or was it known for its blue waters or something? Denaro had been firm though, he needed to make gold off of this trip, and the Hound's smaller coin weren't enough by far. He'd admitted he owed him a debt after the storm, but debts like that couldn't pay off debts back in Braavos.

The ship bumped into port, Denaro yelling at harbour hands and threatening their skins if they damaged the skin of his lady, just as he had done in Salt Shore. The skinny, leathery men just shrugged and got on with their work, settling a plank for them. Sandor pulled Stranger forward without a word of goodbye to Denaro, and Mouse skipped after him. The bird was on the wing already, most like enjoying the view of green hills and mountains instead of rolling dark blue waves. Sandor grabbed Mouse and fair flung him onto the front of the saddle, before mounting up behind him and clicking his teeth at Stranger.

***

He had to say he'd found a good spot for their camp. High enough to see both the port, the Courtesan's Wish the second largest ship there, and the hall above it. High enough that anyone wanting to follow them would be seen well in advance and they would have the advantage of the higher ground. And… she'd probably like the lake too. And he'd like her liking it to be honest.

But Mouse had not liked the clearing. The trees were too close. The ground was too hard. What if there were snakes? What if there were bears? Sandor had told him if there were bears he'd throw the boy to them first if he wasn't quiet… But Mouse had carried on grumbling under his breath, even as he was sent off to find fire wood. That was, once Sandor had explained what kind of sticks and such he should be looking for. The boy wasn't wrong. He wasn't a country mouse. He'd never had much of anything, but he still thought that firewood for the hearth came pre-chopped into equal size chunks…

Sandor sat by the water's edge on a tree stump, enjoying the silence now the boy had finally gone. Sun was setting, and she'd be along soon. Maybe she'd want to sit and kiss for a bit… which he longed for and almost dreaded at once. Their little time together was agonizingly sweet. Agonizing because she did not entirely understand what she did to him. And he wasn't about to explain why sometimes he had to find excuses to be alone in the cabin. Not that he managed to get such privacy often, not with Mouse and the bird around. But he'd rather find times to take him self in hand than try to push her further and have her, bloody rightly, refuse him. Better to keep living from change to change, sweetness to sweetness, than salt the whole damn thing with the bitter truth.

He saw the smoke descend and her form came together next to him on the stump. Together they could look down into the cool still pool of the water and see the large, grim warrior and the delicate lady reflected back. At least that were what he saw. Her hand drifted to her hair.

"Did you bring the bags? There's water and I should use the dye again…"

"There's time for that yet lass… you have the whole night for that. But we don't have much time for this…" He tipped her chin up with his finger and ghosted his lips across hers. She sighed.

"And 'sides, we're heading to Braavos. There's no one there who'd know a Stark girl with red hair. You could let the dye fade out…" He broke each sentence with a kiss on her soft blushed lips. He liked to play with kisses, making some soft and some hard, seeing which ones made her moan and which make her hungry for more. It seemed to change with each time they were together. And he had never known that there could be so many ways to kiss a woman.

"That's true…" She smiled and stood quickly, surprising him and making a frown cross his face. She turned and presented him with the back of her dress. "Unlace me."

The frown remained, he did not entirely understand what she was asking for, but his bloody body responded to the thought anyway.

She looked back at him over her shoulder. "It's long past time you had a bath as well…"

He grunted and stood quickly to unlace her, turning back when her dress fell from her smooth white shoulders. She might have shown herself to him before at the tavern in Salt Shore, but he felt unable to assume she would want to again.

He heard the splash as he was stripping off his shirt. After a moment's thought he kept his breeches on, and waded into the water after her. The bloody water sprite was already swimming away from the bank, her pale shoulders just visible above the water as her dark hair fell over them like a curtain. A few strong arms strokes and he caught up with her though, and she turned in surprise. She wasn't wearing a stitch, but the water was hiding everything he'd hope to see of her. Except those freckles on her collar bone.

"I thought Tarth was known for its bloody clear waters! I can't see shit through this murk!"

"It's called the Sapphire Isle because of the clear seas around it, silly."

He growled. "Did you just call me silly, girl!?"

She giggled and it was the sweetest sound he'd ever heard. She was treading water, slowly around moving as she did, and he was reminded of those bloody stupid dances that the lords and ladies sometimes did. The ones were you had to face each other and prance round each other with a hand in the air like a bloody fool. But if they'd been like this one, he might have gotten involved. With her at least. Gods, she was naked and mere feet from him! He shivered. Soon his change would come though, and best he was back on the bank for that…

"I need to go back… it won't be long now." Her face fell but she nodded.

"Race you?!" She plunged forward into the water, swimming under it and past him in one motion. He turned quickly and pushed himself through the water. Gods damnit, he'd have to stay at least part in the water when he got there. There was no hiding what she'd done to him now his breeches were wet…

She easily beat him back to the bank, and he averted his face as she got up from the water, and stumbled about trying to get back into her dress with wet skin.

"You're fast my lady!"

"Don't forget, I'm half fish!"

He laughed, but he was interrupted by a scream. It was muffled but there was no mistaking it as the cry of a small boy. He charged from the water, forgetting his dignity… not that that mattered much now… and raced to the tree line, crashing through the undergrowth, the sound of her rapid footsteps behind him.

They found Mouse at the bottom of a ravine, pale and sweating with the pain. His leg was broken, the bone pushing through his ragged breeches. He sobbed pitifully.

Sandor roared as the sparks came.

"Sandor? Sandor?! What do we do?!" Her face was a mask of fear. There was only thing that they could do… and he had to force the words out through the pain of the change as it came for him.

"Take him to the Tarth hall. Evenfall. He needs a maester."

***

SANSA

As the dog paced back and forth, and as Mouse groaned in agony, Sansa tried to find that quiet place inside of her she'd often retreated to in King's Landing. When her father's head was on the spike and Joffrey was gloating she'd found that hard edged, steel cold place and had moved to do what had to be done. The Hound had stopped her… doing his duty of course… but she remembered the feel of that determination and how clearly she had seen herself moving forward and pushing the king. In her mind's eye she had watched his body break on rocks below as they grabbed her to take her head off too. It had been so clear and she needed that clarity now. She needed it desperately.

She had reached for the smoke before, calling it to come and take her for the change. But now she didn't call it. She used her mother's voice, the one that had kept the dog away from the boy when he'd gone for him in Oldtown. She used her father's voice when he spoke to his bannermen; low and calm, but born of centuries of leadership. Now she didn't call it. She looked inside herself, to that place of steel and determination… and she threatened the smoke with its sharp edge.

The vile septon and the novice had both overpowered the Hound. And she needed that strength now.

She had been kneeling at Mouse's side, her skirts brushing against the leaves of the floor of the wood. But as she concentrated on commanding the smoke she stood, closing her eyes and turning inwards on herself. And then the edges of her skirts began to trail smoke that curled and twisted over the leaves and stopped the dog in his tracks. The smoke flowed over her shoulders, making her a ghostly cloak of grey and white. It twisted in the dark strands of her hair and gave her the grey locks of a crone, long before her time. And just as the dog had been fire and flesh at Malakor's house, so now she was half smoke, half woman, and as strong as steel. She picked up Mouse as though he weighed no more than a feather, gathering him up with his useless leg hanging down over her arm, and she turned back towards the slope the man and woman had charged down before.

One footstep, then another. Then another. She walked as though asleep, never pausing or reaching out to steady herself, ignoring the branches and thorns that grasped for her travel stained dress and tore it. The dog worried her steps, making low growls and whimpering sounds. The train of smoke had spread so far and wide that the whole of the hollow they had found Mouse in was full of rolling plumes of it. And as she reached the top of the slope it bubbled over on to the clearing and flowed down towards the lake they had bathed in. The dog watched the smoke more than he watched her, and he snapped at it with sharp teeth when it came close to him.

She slowly lifted the boy onto Stranger's saddle, where he fell against the beast's broad back and lay there shivering. Then Sansa came back to herself, suddenly as though waking from a strange dream, and shook her head to clear out the smoke from in there.

Then she realised quite how cold she was under the moonlit night sky. The smoke was receding but she called it to her again, bringing it around her and her wet clothes. It twisted and turned about her like silk… And then it was silk. It settled over her skin as a long fine dress and a cloak of grey and white. Her now dry hair was set with pearls and diamonds, and her skin was as clean and pale as the moon herself.

The last of the smoke she sent over to Mouse, and it covered him as it had done her, replacing his ragged brown breeches and tunic with a simple white shirt and grey breeches. The dog growled low and deep in throat. He was afraid, and so was she, but using the curse… the power they had been given… using it rather than being used by it, felt right. It felt like drawing the sword, instead of always being beaten by it. It felt… exciting.

She pulled gently on Stranger's bridle and he followed obediently, the dog walking after, a long loping shadow in the darker shadow of night.

Evenfall Hall was a dull grey building which did not live up to the romance of its name. Set on a hill above the port where the Courtesan's Wish was docked, the only way to it was up a long and winding gravelled path and Sansa was certain that they were spotted long before their arrival. Two guards in the pink and blues of Tarth were standing ready at the main gate when the woman in fine grey silks, the crying boy on a large black horse's back, and the dog that stuck to the deeper night-shadows, arrived.

"Who goes there?!"

"I seek an audience with the Lord Tarth."

"The hour is late mi'lady. Audiences are for daylight hours."

"I need his aid. Does the Lord Tarth turn away those in need of assistance?"

"Usually…" The other guard grumbled under his breath, but the first guard snapped a dark look at him.

"My lady… The Lord Tarth is at supper. Return on the morning, and I am sure he will open his gates to a fair lady in distress." The other guard sniggered for a moment, but the speaker was stony faced.

"My servant needs to see a maester immediately. You will open the gates." She drew on that steel again, not calling the smoke but just the voices of her parents. She was Sansa Stark, daughter of Lord Eddard Stark, Lord of Winterfell, and she would be obeyed!

The guard hesitated, then drew back the bolts to open the gate to the courtyard. The guard half walked, half jogged over to a man who stumbled out of a side door, rubbing at his sleep filled eyes. He whispered to him quickly and he nodded and came over to the Sansa, throwing her a low bow and straightening his dublet at the same time.

"I am the chief steward here, my lady, called Oren. I will see that your servant is placed abed until the Lord Tarth agrees to send Maester Greve to his side."

"'Agrees to send'…? Is there some doubt that Lord Tarth will help me?"

"If you will follow Guards' Captain Caelin here, he will take you to the main hall and to Lord Selwyn." Caelin, the talker at the gates, bowed briefly and gestured that she follow him. She turned to Mouse and pushed a sweat soaked strand of hair away from his pallid face.

"Be brave my little Mouse" She whispered. "I'll see that they help you." Then she knelt quickly by the dog and cupped his head in her hands, staring deep into his eyes. "Stay with him, but if they try to make you go, don't fight them." She rose then, straightening her back and putting as much Stark ice in her eyes as she could. "Take me to Lord Tarth."

***

"Am I surrounded by fools?!" The man's voice bellowed out of the hall before Caelin even had a chance to open the doors and show her in. "Have none of you any serious answers to my problem? I should hang you all and start again!"

Caelin grimaced at his master's voice, pushed open the door and prepared to introduce her. But then he paused, dumbstruck. "I do not know my lady's name!"

She shushed him, and stood there patiently as Lord Tarth blustered and bellowed. The large fair haired man was sat in the middle of a long table at the far end of the hall, an empty hearth behind him and a fair, but bored lady beside him. Ranged along the table were a variety of men in their older years, but Tarth was prominent amongst them being both larger and redder of face than them all. Part of that was some rage that was currently gripping him.

"It's a Royal Wedding! I cannot send some salt beef and think that our King will forgive me for siding with not one uncle, but two!"

"I did not say salt beef my lord…" One of the men at the table was attempting to placate him and failing badly.

"You said 'produce'… 'examples of the finest that Tarth makes'! And remind me exactly what we make that will charm King Joffrey and make him accept us back into the fold?!" He slammed down a goblet, making the much younger woman beside him wince and roll her eyes. "We need a present for the wedding of the King and the Highgarden girl that will erase from memory that we gave men to first Renly's and then Stannis' causes… that we ever thought to believe the claims about his parentage!"

Sansa was confused by that last remark, but she held her face impassive. There was great danger here if she could not create a convincing lie. What could be a better gift for Joffrey's wedding day than the fugitive Sansa Stark?! The Lannisters would happily replace her copy with the real thing, and then take both their heads… She could not let them discover her.

Caelin took her moment of silence to shout out, "My Lord!"

Tarth looked down his bulbous nose at the stiff backed guard. "What is it Caelin? Why are you disturbing both our supper and our business of state?!"

"There is a lady here who seeks aid for her servant. He appears to have broken-"

"Step forward woman! Into the light, let me see you?!"

Sansa curtsied briefly and stepped into the light. The woman at his side looked her over and pouted, but on Lord Tarth's face was a disgustingly obvious leer.

"If it please you my Lord, my servant has broken his leg and I only ask that your maester might look to healing him as best that he can." She was by now unused to making the long, and frankly boring, phrases expected of court and she hoped she was being suitably deferential. Tarth seemed interested still, but a shadow did pass over his face and he sighed dramatically.

"Only? You ONLY ask?! Do you know how much a maester's keep and feed costs this humble hall? Do you know what financial strains a hall such as this must bear? Do you know why this hearth is not lit?! Do you?!"

"Forgive me my Lord…"

"And who are you to be travelling through Tarth and only to introduce yourself when you seek my aid? What manner of lady does not present herself and her entourage at my gates upon arrival on my isle?" He peered at her. "Your dress is fine, and there are gems in your hair my Lady. Are you of note?"

She inwardly recoiled from his uncouth and brash approach. But on her face she painted what she hoped was a pleasing smile.

"I am of Braavos, my Lord."

He threw up his hands as though that explained everything. But another of his elderly men piped up then.

"You do not sound, nor look, Braavosi girl!"

"I was born in Westeros, but I have made my fortune across the narrow sea."

The woman whispered into the Lord Tarth's ear and his face reddened.

"A whore! But you are a child!"

"The term courtesan is preferable" Seven…. hells! She really should have thought out a story that cast her in a better light. But he was right about a proper lady presenting herself at court before now. And the Braavosi had their own ways of doing things that she could play with. Courtesans were at least women of independent means… but Selwyn Tarth seemed scandalized. "And I am a woman fully grown."

"Out! Out! All of you. I would speak to this 'woman' and remind her of her duties as a member of a civilised society!" The woman grumbled but he growled at her, and she stormed out, stomping her boots on the wooden floorboards of the hall.

"Come here, woman of Braavos. What do you call yourself anyway? You have one of those silly titles the whores there give themselves?" There was a sudden sweatiness to Tarth's brow and Sansa had the unsettling feeling that she had played this game the wrong way. But she walked slowly towards the high table, being sure to keep it between this 'Lord' and herself.

"I am known as… The Smoke."

"'The Smoke', is it?! And if I grab you will you slip through my fingers?!" His fat, meaty paw darted out at her, aiming for her wrist, but catching her fingers as she pulled away from him, grey silks swirling. He gripped her fingers hard and squeezed them together painfully as she tried to yank them away. "What's a maester's services worth, 'my Lady'?" He stood quickly and grabbed her forearm with his other paw. "A quick fuck, here, on this table?"

She looked down in horror at the large gnarled hand that covered her fingers and then into his fevered eyes. Then a smile spread across her face. The smile of someone who knows a secret, or a cunning joke, that the other does not.

"What is it woman? I'm going to fuck you bloody, why are you fucking smiling?!"

"Because you are touching my hand…. and I am touching yours."

She called and the smoke answered. She ordered and the smoke obeyed. It reached into him and pulled something out of the part of him he would dare call his soul. Then he let her hand go. Because she willed it. He sat down. Because she willed it.

And when she opened her aching and red fingers and lay her palm out flat there was a flat, dull, yellow stone resting there.

***

SANDOR

He hated this room. He hated the plain grey stone walls, the smallness of it, the simple bed that took up most of the space of it. He hated the narrow high window with its warped, bubbled glass. He hated the boy in the bed, screaming out his pain. He hated the maester and his maids fussing over him, hated watching them tie sheets about his leg to pull and reset it. He hated it all, but he stayed because she had asked him to watch over the boy. He hated it all… because he felt as though he had been here, in this shitty little room, before.

Had he ever been so small? The boy, Mouse, was about six… at least, he said, he thought he was. When Gregor had grabbed him as he ran and carried him to the brazier he'd been of an age with him. He'd been taken to a room just like this one… out of the way and so very small. And the maester had worked on him there. _Fire must fight fire,_ the bastard had said. _Fire must fight fire._ And he'd slopped foul smelling gunk on his face that burned into the mess there and made him scream and scream and scream. No milk of the poppy for him. It was too 'cooling'. _Fire must fight fire._

This maester had held a vial to the boy's lips as soon as he arrived. But it was taking its own bloody time to work, and until it did the boy thrashed and wailed as they prepared to bring the bone back together. Sansa had swept in not long after the maester and sat quickly at his side, taking his hand, wiping his forehead with a silk cloth and whispering soothing words to the wild eyed boy. There had been no bloody mother to hold his hand. No one at all to stay with him when the maester buggered off back to whatever drink he'd been nursing in the great hall of Clegane's Keep. Just the darkness and the broiling burn on his face.

He should have been glad to see his lady returned, should have been happy that she'd got the boy some treatment for his foolishly gained broken leg. But the dog cowered as her skirts swept past, backing away from the touch of them. The dress suit her well. He knew fuck all about the fashions of court, but he knew an elegant lady when he saw one, knew what caught his eye and showed her to her best. It shaped her and covered her in a way that made him think about uncovering her, and that was all for the good. But the grey and white silks floated and fell like the smoke they were made from and that made the fur on his back stand on end as she moved around the room. He knew what arguments she would make, about the necessity of it, about how he'd called the dog and the fire in Salt Shore to find her and to break that shit Malakor. But that didn't change his mind. He hated that dress.

The maester's servants pulled hard on the sheets and the boy screamed mightily and passed out. The dog cowered further back into the corner of the room.

The old grey robe bumbled about fixing up a splint for him and then stood nodding at his work.

"He needs to be off the leg for as long as possible. If Lord Tarth has agreed to his treatment I assume he will be staying here-"

"No. Not at all. Lord Tarth has agreed to lend us a litter to take him back to our ship."

A maid entered quickly, a bundle of clothes over her arm, and a large pair of men's boots in her other hand.

"My lady, the things you requested. Boy's and men's clothes."

"My lady! You cannot mean to move him. This was a bad break!"

Sansa was inspecting the clothes, holding them up and judging the size. "These are the largest men's clothes you have?" the maid nodded, and Sansa look at them thoughtfully. "Well, they may do. The boy's clothes might have to be taken in a little though…"

"Wait, are those Galladon's clothes? Lord Selwyn would never let you have his son's clothes!"

"And yet he ordered this girl to get them out of storage for me."

"This is… this is wrong! He would never!"

The dog watched the exchange, saw Sansa draw herself up and put on that Stark face he knew so well.

"Are you questioning your master's orders?!

"No… I… no." The maester deferred to her, and Sandor shivered again, like something… wrong… was at work here.

"He sleeps. Are you done here?" The maester nodded mutely and Sansa rose from her seat by his side. "Bring men here in a little while to carry him to the litter."

He looked to be about to question her again, but quailed under her gaze.

***

Tarth's guards left them on the road back to the port, as per Sansa's commands. The captain gave Sansa a brief bow from the back of his horse and then the riders charged back up the hill towards the hall. Under the greying sky of very early morning Sansa looked ghostlike, and Sandor wondered what stories they would tell about the mysterious woman who had commanded their lord to help her. He had no doubt her great beauty would play a large part in the story. How had she convinced him?

Sansa dismounted from the gentle horse she'd been given and smacked it hard on its flanks to send it back after the others. They kept the pony pulling Mouse's litter and Sansa walked forward to capture its bridle, gently rubbing its nose as Stranger watched, huffing. Stupid, jealous, creature! The dog had trotted alongside them on the way down the hill and now he drew closer to her, feeling the beginnings of his change. He whimpered and she drifted a hand down to touch him on the fur between his ears.

"Oh! I just have to…" She seemed to remember something and turned away from him. From his lower position he was not sure what she did, but it seemed for moment as though she drew something out from the bodice of her dress and spun it quickly into the bushes by the path. In the half light he could not be sure though. What in the seven hells was that all about?

With the coming sun his change took him. He gritted his teeth through the pain, not wanting to wake the boy on the litter. Although, given how much milk of the poppy he'd taken, maybe he could not anyway. Sansa held out, without looking, the men's tunic and breeches she'd had the Tarth lord give her. They weren't a great fit, but at least he was dressed. And they were cleaner than what he'd been wearing. She turned back with a smile and moved towards him, as though for an embrace. Without thinking he moved back a step.

"What? What is it?"

The hairs on his arms had risen and he fought back a shiver. It was that bloody dress. But how could he say that? She'd not been dressed so finely since… since Highgarden. And even the fine travelling dress that woman had given her had been ruined on the road. This dress was finer still, but he felt dread at the thought of being touched by it.

She must have noted his eyes on her dress. She looked down at the fine silks and sighed. And then the silk was smoke again, drifting away from her and fading. In their place was the plain cotton of the dress he'd had made for her in Oldtown. Simple, badly cut based on his guess of her size, but familiar. And not born from the smoke. She sighed and shook out her short dark hair, the diamonds and the pearls vanishing like the stars in the morning. Had it been an illusion all along?

"Will you hold me now, Sandor? Before the day, and the bird, come?"

His heart ached. That she even had to ask! But the taint of the magic left him on edge. There was something about their brief stay at Evenfall Hall that bothered him still.

"Lord Tarth was bloody generous, wasn't he? Lending us his maester. Giving us the litter and the supplies of milk of the poppy…. Giving over his dead son's clothes!"

Sansa flushed and looked away and a horrible realisation came to him.

"You did something to him."

She was silent.

"Answer me!" He roared at her, the fear in him awakening the rage.

"I had to help Mouse." She spoke so quietly he barely heard her. "You told me we needed a maester. He was in pain Sandor. I couldn't bear it!" She regained her voice and shouted the last at him.

For a moment Sandor remembered the Stark boy… Bran… the one who fell. He remembered the paleness of her face when he saw her returning from visiting him. Visiting him in that big room at Winterfell, with the hearth and the old crone spinning her stories for the precious little lordling. Sansa had probably held his hand too, like she'd held Mouse's when they'd fussed about him.

But he'd been alone in that tiny room, alone with the fire on his face. _Fire must fight fire,_ the bastard maester had said.

He grabbed at her hand then, catching her fingers as she pulled away. He shouted at her, bellowing his rage out. "What did you do to him?!"

The horror on her face stabbed him in his heart. But then the smoke came, and as tightly as he squeezed his fingers around hers, he could not hold on to her.

***

KAI

At first it had been slightly amusing. Watching Clegane's rapers and cutthroats spewing their guts over the side of the ship had filled him a black mirth. But weeks into their pursuit he wanted to slice up the lot of them and throw them as chum for the fish in the depths. Gregor himself had brought a woman with him from Oldtown and was rarely seen outside of the captain's cabin that he'd taken for himself. Sometimes Kai heard her pitiful crying, but increasingly rarely as she learnt her 'lessons' from the giant. His own cargo was well hidden, otherwise the wretched men would have spoiled his plans for it.

At night they all bedded down in the hold, feeling the swoop and flight of the ship across the waves of the Narrow Sea. She was the fastest that Kai could find in Oldtown. And faster still once he'd made the captain throw his own cargo into the sea upon their departure. He'd leashed Gregor, his men and the captain, but he'd had to leave the crew alone, he was stretched enough as it was and his sendings to Ektor were harder each night. But at least they were heading back north now, being all that way down in Dorne and reaching to him had tested him. He'd become grey and ashen of skin, although the men had assumed he was sea sick as well.

The death of the potential in Salt Shore had needed an urgent sending to Ektor. His master had been aware of the old man in the far South and his investigations, but he was apathetic about him and his death. He was more interested in the damage Kai had found. Given the fire, Ektor thought it was the work of the man, the other Clegane. That both the man and the woman were now reshaping the curse was a concern, and Kai had forced the men away from their whores and other… entertainments… in Salt Shore and back aboard the fleet ship as soon as he could.

He had not even needed to pull hard on their leashes for that. With Gregor pre-occupied they were more and more deferring to his command. As the giant seemed to respect him and his cold efficiency with the stiletto the others had come to see him as his second. So when he announced that they were to turn to the North East, few questioned him. The one fool that did had tried hard to collect his fingers from the deck as the rolled about with the motion of the ship.

Tarth. Something was drawing him to Tarth. Following the spoor of his prey across the sea was difficult, but a night or so back something had bloomed in Tarth. A rare flower in a colour only he could see. They were there…. And one of them was shaping the power given them by Heyrick.

Once they pulled into the small port with only fishing boats and a warship for company, he had pulled the men with him up to the hall of the isle, yanking at the leashes he had on them to get the reluctant men moving along the winding path up the hill. They had wanted to stay and play in the town. Most like they'd have burnt it all to the ground, their appetites were more used to larger playgrounds. Gregor had also emerged from his cabin with a shape slung over his shoulder and disappeared for a moment amidst the buildings, returning empty handed not long after. Kai suspected he'd want to find a new plaything, but first Kai needed him with the party to lend it authority.

Banners were unfurled as they walked in the midday sun. The Stag, the Lion and the three dogs.

They were not far from the port when Kai felt something off to his left, just in the undergrowth shadowed by tall elm trees. He quickly rooted around in the branches and creeping ferns till he found what drew him. It was a flat yellow-ish stone. No different to the hundreds of thousands of similar pebbles around it as the side of the gravel path melded into the wild. But so very different in nature. It sang in his hand, telling him about the power that had created it and who it had come from. Not only had they been here, but one of them had managed to leash the Lord of the isle.

Standing in the great hall, Kai listened as one of the Mountain's more eloquent men made the introductions to Lord Tarth. But the large fair haired Lord just sat there, blank of face. One or more of his men shifted in their seats uncomfortably as they waited for his response. Eventually he grunted, but remained blank looking. Kai was intrigued, he'd never seen a man on a leash without someone on the other end of it. It was as though the spark had gone from the man, leaving only the very basics of life and action. Some might not even notice the difference if the leashed was not a very… proactive… person to begin with. But this would not suit his purposes and was likely to enrage the Mountain soon. Already the giant made fists in his leather gauntlets.

"Is the Lord unwell?" Kai spoke up, ignoring the glares from Gregor's men.

"He has been… tired of late." A maester at the great table spoke when the others refused to fill the silence.

"We are not long from Oldtown and I have a remedy procured there that might aid him. If I might approach?" The guards tensed, and the Mountain's men smiled darkly at the thought of action. But the maester gestured him forward.

As soon as he was opposite the large Lord he moved quickly. He grabbed the man's jaw, wrenched it down and stuffed the stone into the very back of his throat. He had moments before he was grabbed and punched in the stomach, but in that time he made sure the stone was swallowed. He went limp in the arms of the guards, but the Lord Tarth stood quickly and bellowed at them.

"Let him go! Let him go now!" They retreated, dropping the slight man to the floor in front of the grand table.

"I am restored! I am restored! Leave him be!" The lumbering Lord moved as rapidly as he could around the table and helped him to his feet. "You have no idea how it has been-"

His eyes widened and his face paled as Kai grasped his hand.

"Oh, I think I know." Kai smiled as he drew a new stone from him and held it tight in his fist. "I know very well. Now, tell them that you are decided to give that rather splendid warship in the port to our cause."


	15. Chapter 15

SANSA

Before he even opened the first bottle he made sure Mouse was settled in the cabin, propped up with pillows and with his fill of milk of the poppy. Before he even went to find the crew who would have drink on them, he rubbed Stranger over with straw, looked to his feed and the sturdiness of the ropes holding him in the hold. Before he stopped talking and started drinking, he shared short words of greeting with captain Denaro. But after he started, he did not stop.

Sansa watched him from high up on one of the yard arms as he slid down the railings of the forecastle and sat with them holding his back up, bottle in hand. He stared forward, a blank expression on his ruined face as he drank from the thick green glass bottle methodically. There was no joy in, this wasn't for pleasure, and he had turned away the crewmen who wanted to drink with him, who wanted still to toast the Man on Fire with heady red wine. This drinking had one purpose, and one purpose only, to blot out what happened in Tarth.

The bird watched from on high, unwilling to get closer to the large man in this mood. She knew he would never hurt her, but she didn't want to exchange that sullen, silent drinking for a roaring rage again. After her change on the road from Evenfall Hall, he'd sunk into this dark gloom, and with Mouse unconscious the rest of the road back to the Courtesan's Wish had been a silent torture. Even when the ship had pulled from the port and headed back out to sea, there was no lightening of the tension in the air. Denaro's men were even picking up on it now, and the offers of company were dying in the air… replaced by a careful watch from a distance as they measured whether this one was going to be a sad drunk or an angry drunk.

One bottle was emptied, followed by another. And still Sandor sat there on the forecastle alone. Sansa went from wanting to avoid his rage, to wanting to shout at him with hers.

Finally, and when he was most of the way through a third green glass bottle, he started to slump. His head lay back against the railings and his eyes stared up into the sky instead of to the far starboard horizon. Sansa fluttered closer as his eyes unfocused, dipped and closed. She landed on the wooden planks in front of him and watched him with her curious blue eyes. As his eyes closed for longer and longer periods of time she dared to move closer, eventually hopping to his left hand which lay open and palm up on his thigh. His right was barely holding onto the bottle that threatened to tip and spill the last of its contents onto the deck.

His eyes opened wearily, blearily and considered her.

"Little bird…" It was all he said before his eyes closed and remained closed.

It was then that his sending hit her.

She was walking halls of a castle or a keep. This much was familiar. But this was not Winterfell, warmed gently by the warm springs that worked through its stones like veins. The heat and the light here was intense, and everywhere she looked there were torches in sconces studded along the walls of this long corridor. She had to raise hands to her face to hold back the waves of air that pushed against her from them. There were no shadows here except the one she made by holding hands to her eyes. It was like being in one of the Seven Hells, and she wanted to curl up and hide from roaring fires.

But if this was his sending he must be here somewhere.

She dreamt herself a hooded cloak, making it from the snows of Winterfell. She pulled the hood over her head, and the snow was as soft as a white fur, its flakes falling onto her lashes and melting quickly there in the heat. The fire tried to eat the cloak, its raging hunger making the ends of it melt into streams of water that followed the lines of the flat stones that passed under her feet as she walked the halls. But it could not eat it faster than she could dream it and the cloak kept her shaded and cooled from the flames.

She walked for what felt like endless hours in identical corridors, searching for him with worry on her face. He had to be here! Somewhere… somewhere in the depths of this maze there was the man who was dreaming this horrific place!

Finally she realised the stupidity of what she was doing. She slowed her frantic pace and turned to a plain wall. This was a dream and he was wherever she wanted him to be. The stones of the wall melted and fell, creating an arch she could walk through.

For a moment she thought she was back on the Courtesan's Wish, back in the cabin with Mouse on the bed. But this was a smaller room, a room in a keep where the only daylight came through a high narrow window filled with warped glass. And it was not Mouse on the bed, but a bigger boy, covered up to his neck by the sheets and his face half covered by a brown mess of smashed plants and what looked like mud.

A sob caught in Sansa's throat as she realised where she was. The cause and meaning of the hundreds of torches reaching out to her with their scorching flames became clear and she wanted to weep for him.

"Sandor…" The name escaped from her lips in barely a whisper.

The boy on the bed only moaned. She knew he was of an age with Mouse, but larger, already showing the inheritance that had made his brother the Mountain and him the formidable Hound. She stepped forward, the snow cloak sweeping behind her as she sat down on the bed by his side.

"Sandor… I'm here."

The half of his face not covered by the foul smelling gunk was sweating, drenching his hair and staining the pillow below him. His uncovered eye was tightly screwed shut in pain, and his mouth was already drawn into that thin hard line she was used to. She rested a gentle hand on his forehead, avoiding disturbing the poultice. He was so hot to the touch that her hand leapt away from him by its self.

Some of this was a memory, and she could do nothing about what had happened to him in that past. But some of this was a dream as well. Maybe one born out of the bottle, but one that she was sharing with him. And that meant she could touch him. And that meant she could help him.

She untied the snow cloak from around her neck and threw it gently over him. As she did it spread quickly and became a thick snowfall that swept from the bed to the stone floor and covered both. Then flakes of snow drifted down from the ceiling, landing in her red hair and catching on her cheeks. They were as light as lover's kisses, as light as some of his had been in their stolen moments together. She leant forward then, and kissed him gently on that unblemished cheek, closing her eyes as she did. As she opened them again she smiled to see the adult Sandor lying where the boy had been seconds before. The poultice was gone, replaced by the twisting scars that had become so familiar in their months together. Familiar and… loved. They were a part of him and she leant forward again to kiss that side of his face.

A quick hand grabbed her wrist as she moved, preventing her from making it to that side of his face. And suddenly it wasn't Sandor she moved towards any more, but Gregor.

She looked sternly into the giant's face, noting the wildness of his two unmarred eyes and the foulness of his breath.

"No. No, this is not you." The hand crushing her wrist tightened and she gasped at the pain and closed her eyes.

"Look at me!" Roared Gregor.

"I do look at you! I look at you and I do not see your brother!"

He pulled her quickly across the bed and pinned her there, laying his immense weight across her, pushing her into the snow as her hair spread out into a red halo upon it.

"You won't. You won't!" She stared deep into those rabid eyes and saw a glimmer of doubt in them.

She closed her eyes and bared her neck to him, just as she had done in the woods after his first change.

His breath was on her neck and she surrendered entirely.

Then his lips on her neck brought her back to life. Opening her eyes she saw Sandor lying above her, still grasping her wrist, but with a gentle pressure now. He captured her lips and kissed her with a need she had not felt from him before. His other hand moved to her hip and held her there tightly as he moved his body over hers, grinding against her as she moved her body against his instinctively. But this was his dream, and although he was showing her what he would do to her… her reaction was muted, like echoes trapped by snow. When he kissed her, out there in the world of the bird and the dog, she could feel her core tense and shivers run through her body. Here… here she was as unfeeling as a statue.

He stopped and moved away, sitting on the edge of the bed as the snows melted away around them. Steam rose from his shoulders as his fire reclaimed him. But she ignored the heat and draped herself across his broad shoulders as she had done in their room at the Black Snake. This time there was no smoke to take her away from him and she whispered in his unburnt ear.

"Wake… wake and find me. Find me…"

And she woke. She was still in the palm of his hand, still with him as he lay slumped on the forecastle of the Courtesan's Wish. Above her he stirred, coming back to himself. It was likely he was still drunk. The sun was still in the sky, if moved along from where it was when they went to sleep. But if he was he did not show it as he gently raised his hand with her on it and looked carefully at the small bird.

He opened his mouth to say something, but a call from the Mouse's Nest above them silenced him. Yrin the small and swift climber was up there and he shouted down with an almost bored tone.

"Ships. Two ships astern. Two ships astern."

It wasn't the first time they'd sighted ships on the horizon, there'd been plenty as they'd pulled into Salt Shore. But for some reason Sansa was filled with an immediate and gut churning sense of dread. And, unbidden, a thought came to mind and echoed there over and over again. They have found us. They have found us. They have found us.

And she chirped for him. Three times. Three times for danger.

***

For near on two weeks the two ships trailed them. Sandor took to watching the black dots on the horizon behind them during his hours as a man. And even at night some of the crew whispered that they saw a large dark dog standing watch on the quarter deck. It was a terrible beast that they described to Sandor, a creature with moon white fangs dripping saliva that hissed and spit like acid as it hit the wooden boards. He had laughed and mocked both their superstitious natures and the children's nightmares that they still had. But even so, the crewmembers reported seeing the statue still dog that kept watch over the two ships in the distance.

He no longer slept much, and Sansa missed their daylight sendings. To her it seemed that, after their dream of Clegane's Keep, he had drawn up his own drawbridge to prevent her seeing more of that dark past. He was still gruffly affectionate when they had their stolen moments together, but it was so very muted compared to how it had been. At first she thought it was because Mouse lay there sleeping in the cabin while she smiled and tried to draw his arms around her. But later, when Mouse was wide awake and hobbling around up on deck with his crutches, complaining loudly about the constant itching under his splint… later, when they were finally alone in the cabin… Sandor still seemed to have forgotten the urgency with which he used to pull her to him.

She hoped that he was only distracted by the ships. He at least agreed with her that they gave him a dark feeling of foreboding that other craft sighted before on the Narrow Sea did not. But Sansa did not keep an eye on them as much as he did. She was too busy noting the coast to their portside.

Captain Denaro had brought the Courtesan's Wish in far closer to land than she would have liked. He had even attempted to hook around the isle of Driftmark in the dead of night to throw the two ships off of their scent, while avoiding the night fires of Dragonstone at the same time. That had brought them closer to Blackwater Bay than they had been since the night it had burnt green as Stannis' ships fell. Since the night that he'd come for her and offered her a way home. Despair pressed on her as she peered into the darkness, facing against the wind and towards the bay and King's Landing. To have travelled so far, and to be back almost where they had started…

Sansa realised that it felt almost the same when his lips merely brushed hers briefly and he turned back to discussions of their course with Mouse who was eager for Braavos…

That he had turned to drinking again, that he was gruffer with her than he had been in a long while… that he seemed to have forgotten what drew him to her… all of these things made her feel as though time had become a circle, and that they were no nearer to breaking the curse. Or to returning home.

Then the morning after they had sped past Dragonstone, as she perched high above Sandor, standing in his usual watching place on the quarter deck, she heard a flood of curses spew from his mouth. A crewmember who was nearby… was it Lirn or Buert, she did not remember… ran quickly from the large warrior, dropping the ropes in his hand and scarpering in front of his rage.

"They've closed on us!" More curses followed, turning the air blue. Then Captain Denaro slowly walked up, brought by Lirn, or Buert, and cautiously approached him.

"Can't this shit bucket go any faster?" Sandor grabbed him by the tunic and Captain Denaro allowed it… for now.

"I'd hoped we'd lost them in the dark and between the islands…"

"Looks to me they fucking knew where to expect us."

"My Lord, I hope you aren't suggesting…"

"No… no, I aint." He set the Captain down. "Where are we?"

"We'll be near the mouth of the Bay of Crabs by this night. We'll drop our lights and slip the Wish out to deeper sea once night falls. They might think we're still heading up the coast towards Gulltown…"

"Doubt it'll do any fucking good. They've got our scent now."

Sansa flew closer, watching the grim dark look on Sandor's face.

"What tracks us, ser?" Captain Denaro followed where he looked, out to where the two dark marks were coming into focus as ships.

"Nothing good."

***

They never got to try Captain Denaro's second feint. As the day darkened, and Sansa looked forward to her change with a beating heart, some dark shape moved from the two trailing ships and made for the Courtesan's Wish. Sandor saw it first, his self-enforced watch not yet over, even though he should have been below decks readying himself for his change.

Whatever it was, it was fast. Far faster than the two ships behind them. Sandor had time to bellow a warning to the Mouse's Nest, and Yrin had chance to sight it and repeat the warning.

"Astern! Danger astern!"

The men raced to stations and Sandor searched quickly for her, his eyes settling on her before he beckoned her to his shoulder. She flew down and landed quickly.

"Get below with Mouse. And bloody well stay there!"

She chirped a reluctant yes and darted away to the side of the ship and their cabin's porthole. But seconds before she would have made it through the hole, the ship bucked feet into the air, leaving the sea behind as it juddered, before crashed back down into the surf and dashing her with salt water.

She fell like a stone.

Her water logged feathers were useless and the sea claimed her quickly. Her only hope was that the change could be brought forward. She'd done it before, using her frustration and rage at Sandor during one particular argument and channelling it into calling the smoke. She reached out for it as she plunged through the freezing water. For cruel seconds nothing happened and then suddenly the maelstrom and tumble of air bubbles around her became filled with smoke that burst upon the crests of waves and was released into the air.

She surfaced as the woman and gasped for air as she twisted about to try to find the Courtesan's Wish. She was listing heavily away from Sansa, the men aboard screaming and yelling as something hit hard into it again from the opposite side to where Sansa tread water. It was exhausting and she wouldn't be able to do it for much longer in her skirts, so she called upon the smoke again, this time to fill her with the same unnatural strength she had desired on Tarth.

But instead the water around her bubbled and erupted with smoke and she felt the waves lift her in their embrace as water and smoke churned together around her. She was raised high by them both and was then deposited roughly onto the deck of the ship, the waves retreating just as suddenly. She had to immediately grab a hold of the railings to stop herself sliding as the ship was hit again and listed drastically towards its starboard side.

Sandor was there, holding onto the mast and brandishing his sword, his face lit by the raging fire that cascaded from his shoulders and crackled towards the deck. Sansa looked past him to what had hit then, and felt the blood freeze in her veins.

Something black was pooling over the side of the ship like a second sea living in the first. And just like the sea its movements seemed tidal, beating at the ship. Again, as she watched, the Courtesan's Wish bucked under the creature's forceful attack, near throwing her into the air. Sandor was hacking at what parts of the flowing water he could reach while still holding onto the mast that kept him from falling totally into that strange second sea. Each slash of his blade cut off a part of the dark sea, but the parts slide back into the whole almost immediately.

Sansa looked through the spray of sea water beating at her body and face and peered at the different crew members holding onto the ship around her. Finally she spotted Captain Denaro and struggled over to him, hanging from the railings and any ropes she could find.

"Captain! Captain!"

He looked up at her through drenched hair and she felt pity for the man who was seeing his own love being broken apart.

"If we can break free of the… the black water…. Can she still get us to land?"

"At the moment, aye!" He cursed loudly in Braavosi. "But she's cracking under the strain."

"Prepare your men to get her underway. Take us to land, as quick as you can."

"How are we going to break away?!"

"I don't know yet…" She looked back at Sandor and his sword, still hacking at the black sea. "Just be ready!" Denaro nodded and set to gathering what men he had left. Most he sent below to check the hull and he stayed with the rest as they rushed tend to ropes and sails.

She pulled herself to a position on the railings above the mast, and carefully moved with the tilt of the ship to skid to the mast and Sandor.

"Girl! I fucking told you to get below!"

She shook her head, unable to get a word out as the ship rocked and creaked beneath them. The wood of the Courtesan's Wish was screaming as the black sea tortured her, and the noise was horrific.

Sansa ignored the flame cloak on his shoulders and grasped his arm to steady herself as she called the smoke again, bringing tendrils of it to slide across the deck towards the black sea. She offered up a quick prayer to whatever gods might be listening and watched as the smoke and the black water make contact.

The black water retreated as the smoke touched it. But not all of it.

"Sandor… send the fire… send it!"

He looked at her blankly for a moment, and her heart fell as she realised that he might not be able to do as she had done. The smoke came easier to her than the fire did to him. But then suddenly his cloak of fire flared and roared, spreading across the deck to touch the black water as well. The horror arched back from the smoke and fire and retreated enough to allow the Courtesan's Wish to suddenly right herself. Sansa fell but Sandor's arms were there to catch her.

"Steady girl, steady!"

She looked quickly at the crewmen working hard at the limp and torn sails. And the black water was swelling again, returning with the force of the sea. Then chance, or the gods, or some other power, took pity on them and the sails finally billowed.

And then the race began in earnest.

***

The Courtesan's Wish was dashed aground at Captain Denaro's command. Sansa had watched him grow more frantic as the night darkened quickly and the two ships raced them into the Bay of Crabs. They'd looked for a route out to sea, but the black water had stretched out behind them as far as the eye could see. Their only option had seemed to be to head up into the bay and perhaps make it to Maidenpool and what security they might find there. Sansa had felt a sickness in her stomach that told her that there was no safety there, and Captain Denaro seemed of a like mind, taking his beloved ship on past the few lights of Maidenpool and pushing her into the shallows further along the opposite shore.

He leapt to the deck from the forecastle and swore at his men to make ready as the shore raced towards them under a fat moon. Sansa knelt by the dog's side as the darker line of land hurtled at them. The two ships, black shapes against the blacker night, were moments behind them and Denaro yelled out to his men that they should make a break for the treeline.

Sansa fervently wished that Sandor was here and she buried her face against the dog's flank as land came for them.

His change had taken him during the chase and he had sworn his way almost all the way through it, yelling at the curse that took him away at the worst possible time. What men were around watched with horrified eyes as the man twisted into the dog, screaming and groaning with the pain. But Sansa had glared at them all and sworn with some of his curse words that she would take their tongues if they ever, ever spoke of it again! Let them have the story of the Man on Fire, no one would repeat his pain for their entertainment!

Now she knelt with him and whispered into his ruined ear that it would be alright. Together they'd turned back the black water hadn't, they? They'd faced Malakor, and the Oldtown novice, and Heyrick…

Then the land hit them, throwing them to the deck and winding many of them. And then the rush was on to make it to shore and then the dark shadows under the trees. Captain Denaro carried the petrified Mouse, leaping down into the surf as Sansa and the Hound dropped into the water. Sansa came up spluttering, cold and drenched yet again, but found the dog and kicked with him towards the gravelled earth. As she dragged herself from the water she looked back to see Haig and his carpenters hacking open a tear in the hold from the inside, and then Stranger was free, rearing up before plunging into the water and making for land.

But they were too slow. Men poured from the nearer ship, a lightweight trader, as arrows, black and invisible in the dark, rained down on them from the larger warship. Crawling on the ground in her sodden and mud covered dress, Sansa turned back to the coming horde just as the dog leapt in front of her, snapping and growling at the laughing and yelling shadowy figures running towards them in the moonlight.

Then an immense figure leapt from the gangplank of the larger warship, broadsword in hand, and Sansa's blood froze.

It was the Mountain. It was Gregor Clegane.

***

Sansa reached out for him with fingers that just missed, imploring him to stay, but the dog ran towards the giant man anyway. She screamed his name but he was deaf in his rage. Then half way to the figure who was hacking apart Denaro's men with a cleaving broadsword the dog skidded to a halt and for a happy moment she thought he might have heard her. But then the dog curled up as she had seen him do so many times, thrashing on his side as the change came with its fire and pain. The naked man that rose from the churned up mud of the banks of the bay stooped to gather up a fallen man's sword and continued the dog's charge towards his brother.

Sansa ran forward, tripping and falling over her mud soaked skirts as another rain of black arrows found their targets. Then suddenly a man's hand was over her mouth and she could taste blood.

"There she is. There she is now!" She struggled against the arms that held her, whimpering as his fingers dug into her. They were drenched in blood, blood that soaked his clothes all the way up to the elbows, now sticky and dark in its clotting.

"I could taste you all the way from Tarth, so close you were…" He turned her to face him and she saw the face that still haunted her dreams. He was Heyrick, he was the Oldtown Novice… he was neither, but so alike to them she knew he was their Brother.

"A very pretty little maiden gave her life to call the black beast. I hope you appreciate the effort we've gone to get to you. Where's your dog knight?"

Sansa pulled from him for a moment to look back to where Sandor and Gregor fought, the larger man laughing as the naked man, caked in blood and mud, challenged him.

"Good. The giant can have his fun for a while, then I'll eat your heart and his, and then I can finally take your power back to Ektor."

Sansa felt dizzy, the blood in her mouth turning her stomach and the crazed look in the brother's eyes terrifying her. But something else was unsettling her, and it took a moment to identify it… her change was coming. It was not as it had always been though, the smoke was coming but instead of the usual easy slide from form to form she felt it taking her breath and fogging her eyes as it claimed her. It rolled from her hair and her fingertips as inch by inch it claimed her, breaking her down in a way it never had before. She screamed and the bird's cry came from her lips.

The Smiling Brother looked confused but then a black fletched arrow erupted from his chest after piercing straight through the rolling smoke that had claimed her own. Blood bubbled from his mouth as he collapsed to his knees and then fell face down in the mud.

The smoke took her completely and left the bird. On quick wings she tumbled and twisted between the fighting men, trailing smoke after her, more smoke than she had ever called before. And the men could not see friend from foe and cut down both.

She found Mouse on the far side of Stranger, clasping his hands and praying. The horse had an arrow stuck deep into his saddle, but he was standing. She trailed smoke around them, a slight protection she could give them.

Then she veered back through the dense dark grey to where the two Cleganes struggled to see each other through the obscuring smoke. Sandor was screaming out Gregor's name, and the giant was still laughing that loud chilling laugh. Both were trying to locate each other by the sound, but Sansa flew between them and trailed a smoke so thick that the brothers were separated.

The naked Hound, lightly gashed from shoulder to belly and covered in thick clay like mud, sank to his knees, dropping the tip of his sword into the ooze.

She landed on a rock in front of him and watched him slowly raise his sweat soaked head to look at her.

_Get up!_ she thought to him. _Get up and get us away from here! Get up and live you foolish man!_

But he did not move. In the smoke she could still hear the bellowing of the giant and it was getting closer.

She stared deep into his dark eyes with her blue ones and snapped at him.

_You swore to me… you swore to serve me! Get up! Get up, dog!_

First one foot, then the next were planted heavily into the mud and the man raised himself up. She took to wing and he followed through the dense smoke, ignoring the cries of the dying and the clang of steel echoing through it. She took him to Stranger and Mouse, and he tore the arrow from the saddle before throwing the boy onto it and mounting up behind him. Stranger balked for a moment at the strange man on his back covered almost all over in mud and blood, but Sandor lay a calming hand on him, and then they were charging away from the death that surrounded them, a cover of smoke coming with them as Sansa flew ahead of them, leading them on towards the mouth of the Trident.

***

Hours later and Stranger was weakening. His weeks in the hold of the Courtesan's Wish had left him unused to galloping through the night, and his muscles were cold from the dash to the shore. They'd slowed and slowed until Stranger was dragging hoof after hoof, his head down and his mane over his eyes. They had to find somewhere to rest, but for a long time Sansa could see nothing in the slight light of the moon. Even a deserted barn or outhouse would have helped, if the man on the horse could stir himself to make them a fire. Like Stranger, he rode with his head down, his hair obscuring his face.

She was unused to flying by night, and her bird form was not made for it. Her eyes struggled even to make out normal shapes like the edges of the trees, and twice she almost flew into low slung branches. She was starting to really worry for them. Mouse was shivering violently now…

Then, in the distance to her left, her eye caught the tiniest of twinkling lights. She veered over quickly, leaving the horse to its slow path, and flew as fast as she still could over to where she had spotted it. She skimmed over the mudflats and came upon a small isle, not all that far from the mouth of the Trident. She peered through the dark and made out terraced fields, a windmill, and then a wooden sept. She returned to her companions then, swooping around them and singing until Sandor roused himself enough to pull on Stranger's bridle and follow her.

***

The fifth time Stranger got a hoof caught in the mud and whinnied in alarm Sandor finally snapped back to himself and barked out curses. They had been going back and forth for what felt like hours and Mouse had fallen asleep on Stranger's back while they got more and more frustrated.

"Seven fucking hells! There's no way across! We need to head back to the land!"

Mouse mumbled in his sleep.

"That's it… We're done…" He went to pull on Stranger's bridle to turn the exhausted destrier back towards the shoreline when Mouse's mumbling became clearer.

"The bird sees the way. Follow her… follow the bird."

Sansa had taken a rest on the pommel of the saddle, but now flew up as quick as her tired wings could take her. Could she see the way? The mudflats looked like a black plain in the dark, the isle a tempting vision that they couldn't get to. The moon was hiding behind clouds and gave no aid in lighting their way. She prayed a little for more light, but doubted that anyone was listening this cursed night. But then the clouds cleared for a moment and she saw the mudflats from her high place. There was… there was a difference… some of the mud was a dull black grey, and some glimmered in the moon light, reflecting the light back differently. Stranger had just walked into a dull patch and got stuck. If they stayed on the shining parts it made a twisting path towards the isle!

She flew down and Sandor pulled Stranger's head to face her path. An hour later the horse picked his mud-caked legs up and placed his hooves down on the solid earth of the isle.

A man in a brown and dun robe was waiting for them, a bundle of blankets over one arm and a rusted and pitted sword in the other hand.

***

Sandor

He sat hunched over the carved driftwood cup of warmed sweetened wine and stared into the fire, swaddled by coarse woollen blankets and dressed in some other man's clothes. At the back of this 'hermit's hole', the bald man was moving over the small figure of Mouse, who was tucked into the man's bed and fast asleep again. Sandor had watched the stranger by the light of the long thin beeswax candles as he'd eased the boy abed, feeling his forehead and checking his splints with an experienced hand. Then Sandor had turned back to look into the fire, tired of bone and mouth after telling their story for so many long hours of the night. The bird slept too, nestled against his neck.

The man returned and took his polished driftwood seat in silence. Elder Brother, he'd called himself. Sandor had grunted angrily. He'd had his fucking fill of elder brothers… the roaring noise in his ears when he'd seen Gregor leap from the ship had dulled to an echoing distraction now. But he still felt the sting of his brother's laughter, and the pain of the cut he'd given him, running almost shoulder to cock. That was bandaged now, but it was another scar to remember his elder brother by.

"Where were we then?" This Elder Brother was an older man, shaved of head, with the shrewd eyes of a man who has seen more of life than this isle of gods botherers. The rusted and pitted blade stood against a crafted bookshelf reminded Sandor of that. The man had apologised for the drawn sword on their arrival. But he had said that those who had brought him to find them in the middle of the night had not told him of their intentions. Fucking kneelers Sandor had thought bitterly…

And yet… he'd accepted Sandor's stilted version of their story without murmer. He'd left out some of the details, but the man had nodded and considered his tale as he told it, breaking only occasionally to check on Mouse who had started a slight fever after they had set foot on the isle.

"It's been twisted about."

"Yes, yes… The bird by day and the dog by night. And now…"

"I should be the dog, and she should be the one telling you our story. And she'd be bloody better at it too."

Elder Brother paused and stared deep into the fire.

"Will the boy be well again?" Sandor cared not that concern was thick in his voice. Not anymore.

"What? Oh yes… his fever will pass. And the maester of Tarth did a fine job on your squire's leg. He may limp a little, but I could not have done far better…" The man was distracted, thinking over the problem. "This curse… it is not your friend."

"Too bloody right!"

"Well, yes. But also… you might change it, shape it as you have told me. But it is not ultimately made for serving you. It was made… by this 'Heyrick'… to keep you and your lady apart. On the ship, when you fought the black water together, did you feel the fire of the change coming for you?"

He thought back to the maelstrom at the mouth of the bay of crabs. The fire had been there. He'd forced it to serve him so that he could draw his sword and face down the blackness that came for them. But it'd been there.

"Aye. It tried."

"And when you became the man to fight your attackers on the shore…. She became the bird."

Sandor nodded. Shame burned him. He'd left her, he'd left her behind to go after Gregor with a berserker's madness and she'd been all alone.

"Think of it as a pair of scales. Like the Father's scales. They must always be in balance. The dog and the woman, the man and the bird."

"But she's changed before, become the bird before her time…?!"

"Yes, she's changed when you have been both in the shape of man and woman. The curse wants that change, its wants you to be apart, so it allows it. Any attempt to be together as man and woman, except during those brief moments… and the other will be forced to change soon after."

Sandor contemplated this. More fucking rules and twists to the curse.

"What do think will happen when the sun rises? Will I become the dog during the day, and she will have the night?"

"Soon we shall see, the sun is very close now… But I suspect that those scales will attempt to right themselves again. You may have your brief time together… such a cruel addition to the curse I must say… but then she will be the bird again, for the day."

"Cruel? Crueler than shifting our forms and driving us apart?!"

"Aye. Cruel to give you the merest moment of hope." Elder Brother drank his own wine and then looked intently at the man opposite him, firelight bathing them both. "I am no fool. I know that there is much that you have not told me of the two of you. And that is as you wish. There are many here who have locked their pasts away, including myself. But one thing is most clear from your tale. It is the height of cruelty to bring you two together only to drive you apart moments after."

Sandor grunted dismissively. But the man spoke true. Already Sandor regretted the distance he had put between them over the last few weeks. After his dream of Clegane's Keep he'd wanted to bury himself away from… everything. Even her.

The bird stirred and awoke.

"The sun comes." The Elder Brother whispered.

She ruffled her feathers and burst into a complicated trilling song.

"She's thanking you." Sandor looked towards the man and saw what he thought was the glistening of tears in his eyes.

"By the Seven! I believed you… but I did not know. Do you want to know what woke me in the night and brought me to you on the shore of the isle? I dreamt… I dreamt of that song and I followed where it would lead me."

The smoke came then, filling the cosy cave and leaving the girl standing between their chairs. She swayed a little and then fell hard against Sandor's chair. He grabbed at her and dragged her to it, letting her have his place.

"Forgive me…" She whispered.

Elder Brother was on his feet and bringing back more sweetened wine from a clay pot hanging above the fire. She grasped the shaped wooden cup in both hands and drank deeply. Sandor hovered by, taking in her mud ruined dress and her gritted, wet hair. He quickly slung his blankets about her.

"No, it is I who should beg forgiveness. Anders here has told me much of your journeys and I should have been better readied for your arrival, my lady Jeyne."

Sansa looked up to Sandor with wide, concerned eyes.

"You were wounded?!"

Sandor shook his head. "Just a scratch… I've had worse from my brother-"

He stopped himself, looking quickly at Elder Brother. He had almost said too much.

"Sandor… tell him the truth."

He started at his name on her lips and then frowned at her.

"We can trust him."

"You think that of everyone and you should know better, little bird!" He snapped at her, and then sighed. "Very well." He looked to the curious face of the monk. "I am Sandor Clegane, known as the Hound, once sworn shield to King Joffrey Baratheon. And this is the Lady Sansa, daughter of Lord Eddard Stark of Winterfell." He spoke gruffly, but the sound of her true name on his lips was sweet and reminded him of so much of their past together.

Elder Brother's mouth opened slightly in shock, but then there was sorrow on his face.

"My Lady Stark!" he went to her quickly and bowed low. "Please allow me to give you my condolences for your many and grave losses-"

There was a curious sound and Sandor looked to Sansa quickly. Her hand was shaking, the wine spilling from her cup.

"My losses? How… how many losses have I endured?" Her voice was breaking as she asked, her face paling.

Elder Brother went quickly to a driftwood desk covered over in parchments, and dug out three small pieces, twisted and rolling into loops. Messages brought in by ravens.

Silently he passed them to her, and she read all three quickly, before looking up at his face, imploring him with her eyes.

"I am so, so sorry, my Lady Stark."

She dropped the parchments from lifeless fingers. And then the smoke was coming.

"No! No Sansa, wait!" Sandor went to reach for her, but the smoke had her as she screamed her way into the shape of the large black bird of prey that had taken the novice's eye. The woman's scream continued as the door to the cave blew outwards by some unknown force, and she took to large black wings, flying out through the smoke… and out through the remaining hole of the doorway.

Sandor grabbed the Elder Brother.

"Who has she lost? Who?!"

Elder Brother looked to the parchments and Sandor grabbed them, reading them over and over as the words would not make sense. They could not possibly make sense. A wedding of Tully to Frey. Her mother and brother. Her two small brothers burnt. Winterfell. Burnt.

"All of them. She has lost all of them." He answered his own question after the reading of them.

Sandor sagged down, slowly taking his seat on the chair with the movements of an old man.

"What of her sister. The annoying little one. Arya?"

"No word of her I am afraid. I hear many things from the kingdoms, but not all. She may still be alive. Somewhere. Until now I had thought that Lady Sansa was in the Red Keep preparing for her wedding day to Lord Tyrion…"

"Fuck the fucking Lannisters!"

Elder Brother wisely ignored both the comment and the curse words.

Sandor sat in deeper silence, the parchments still grasped in his fingers.

"There's a bastard brother too. Joined the Night's Watch…" He looked up at Elder Brother, beseeching him. "She must have someone left!"

"She has you."

"Some fucking use I am to her."

Then suddenly something pulled him forward from the chair and onto his knees, and he pressed a hand to his chest. Gods, it felt as though someone was trying to rip his heart from between his ribs!

"What is it?!" Elder Brother knelt beside him.

"She's… she's trying to fly…" he gasped, "She's trying to fly through the barrier that keeps us together. She's pushing against it." He stood, bracing himself against the constant pull of her. "She's trying to fly away."

"Where?"

Sandor tried to get his bearings, but he knew the answer immediately any way.

"North. She's trying to fly North!"

Elder Brother sighed and looked sadly at the larger man.

"And I fear that come night fall, you will not change…"

Sandor looked at him in confusion.

"I doubt very much that she will be the woman again until she either gets there… or returns to you."


	16. Chapter 16

SANDOR

The morning air was crisp as he shouldered the spade and walked the long way around the terraces to the ramshackle grave stones. Crisp and cold. Winter was coming, he thought. Which reminded him of her. But then every bloody thing did these days.

He looked forward to his mornings among the dead. He could give his hands over to the rhythm of digging and clear his mind. He could stretch his muscles and make them ache enough to cover the ache and constant pull at his chest. Near two fucking months and she was still trying to get to the North.

At first he'd thought of just packing up and galloping Stranger to where she wanted to go. Let her rain down that rightful rage on the Boltons and the Freys. Let them taste the death she brought on her wings. He'd had rage enough of his own on her behalf and he wanted the taste of their blood in his mouth and their gore smeared across his blade. But that was him. He was born to it, bred for it. She was different. She ought to be different. She was light and laughter and silly thoughts about knights and flower crowns. She shouldn't be the large black bird with the blood coloured tail feathers.

So he'd stayed. And every morning he woke to the same pulling at his chest as she railed against that invisible boundary. Every day he felt it at different angles as he worked among the gravestones, or as he sat and ate with the mute brothers in the echoing hall, or when he walked to the northern edges of the isle scanning the sky for her. Always North, yanking at his back when he faced South, his side, even his head as he lay in the small monk's cell they'd given him, begging for it to stop so that they could both sleep.

He slept as a man now. He could barely even remember how it had felt to run as the dog, the intense smells and dull colours. And he wondered if she had forgotten the girl. The girl who drove him mad, standing up to him when others quaked in fear. Who'd saved his life, when he didn't even know that he'd had a life worth saving… he groaned, he never stopped thinking of her!

The rushed, shambling steps behind him told him that the boy was chasing after him.

"Ser! Ser!"

"Don't call me that. Especially not here."

"Elder Brother sent me with your lunch. You aint fetched none from the kitchens…"

"'I didn't fetch any'." He corrected Mouse as she would have done. He should have been giving care to his letters too, but Elder Brother had taken that over and was a fairer teacher with more patience than him.

"I know! That's what I just said!" Mouse limped alongside him companionable silence for a moment.

"Good to see you off of your bloody knees for once."

Mouse spent more and more time in the sept where he helped out with the services, but his faith had also blossomed there into daily devotion. Elder Brother had said that if they were staying then they'd have to work as any brother had to here, even if they weren't taking vows. Sandor had already told him where to stick those vows when that idea had first been voiced. But he'd been glad of the work. Work meant covering the constant pulling ache in his heart, work meant not thinking about her for a bloody moment.

"I pray for her." Mouse was quiet.

"I know you do lad." Even Sandor had started joining the brothers for their simple daily services… well, there wasn't much else to do here! And eventually he had looked up at those carved faces of the Seven and whispered prayers for her. Angry prayers full of threats and curses, furious prayers at gods who'd never been real enough before to be angry at. But surrounded by the steady faith of the brothers here they'd become a possible target. All except Her. The Maiden. The statue with the sweet face he almost thought was alike to hers.

"Elder Brother says she'll come back. He says she'll remember us and she'll come back. He says he wouldn't leave us…"

"Elder Brother says too fucking much!"

Mouse handed him his lunch of chunky ham sandwiches and an apple. Sandor handed back the apple and Mouse started munching on it as they reached the stones. A dead man had drifted ashore yesterday and a hole was needed. The body was bloated and green, but Sandor had seen some of Elleri's supposedly handsome features in his face. He'd made it back to them at least.

Mouse sat up on a stone and chomped at the green apple.

"He says that she's like the female parts." Sandor stopped before the spade had even touched the ground and looked at Mouse with shock as he continued. "The Maiden, the Mother and the Crone…"

He laughed darkly "Don't be saying it like that among the men, they'll think you're being blasphemous and beat you!"

"I don't understand…?"

"You will one day. Go on, what does Elder Brother say about the Maiden, the Mother and the Crone?"

"He says she was 'like unto' the Maiden when he first saw her… I like the way he talks sometimes, 'like unto', its fancy… and he says she was a mother to me, because I lost mine and the Seven sent her…"

Sandor fought the urge to laugh and mock the boy. Let him think the gods sent them to him in Oldtown, if it made him happy. He concentrated on shovelling the hardening earth. Winter was coming. Fuck that! He didn't want her family words in his head!

"And the Crone? She ain't nothing like the Crone!"

"That's where it's complicated. He says that the Stranger is with her now…"

That much was fucking true. Gods help the Boltons and the Freys if she made it past that barrier!

"But when she returns she'll be transformed. Older, wiser. More like the Crone. But he says we've got to remind her of the Mother and the Maiden, or she'll stay the Crone. Wise, but not as she should be." Mouse triumphantly bit into the apple and ate loudly, smacking his lips together.

"He ever say anything about me?" Sandor had taken to spending his evenings with the Elder Brother, sharing wine and battle stories. He'd even shared the wretched tale of his burning with the older man. The girl was the only other one he'd done that with. Gods, he missed the touch of her hand on his face… being the man at night had led to dreams and memories of her, and he often woke in that grey cell thinking of that bath in Salt Shore, or the first time he'd kissed her after she'd been torn by some bigger bird. He woke both sorrowful and aroused all at once. Seven fucking hells, he'd kill for more wine to wipe out such painful wakefulness, but Elder Brother had limited his supplies.

He'd forgotten he'd asked Mouse a question and started a little as he spoke.

"He says you're like the male parts…" Sandor groaned at the expression but the boy continued. "The Warrior, obviously. And the Stranger has always been with you. And maybe… maybe a bit like the Father." Mouse looked shyly up at him.

After she'd gone Sandor had tried to moderate his usual gruffness with the boy. A few nicer words here and there. No more barking orders at him. And the boy had responded by wrapping his arms about him one day out of the blue. He hadn't done it again, but there was an understanding now between them. Aye, there was something of the Father about him now.

"And the work you've done on my new knights… he says that reminds him of the Smith."

Sandor did not sleep well, waiting for the pulling to cease so he knew that she finally slept and then waiting to see if it might also mean she had turned back… So he carved more knights for the boy. Some were on horses. A few hunting dogs. It was surprising how quickly they had multiplied into a small army.

"And the work you've done on the cottage… for her."

The cottages were meant for visiting women, to keep them away from the monks who might be distracted by their womanly ways. A week or so into his wait he'd chosen one and told Elder Brother it was hers now. Then he'd cleaned it out, repaired furniture, and set new rugs and hangings in it taken from here and there. He'd made her a nice nest, hoping to tempt her back. But it still sat empty.

"But he says you've definitely got to start working in the smithy." Mouse scampered away quickly. "Don't wallop the messenger!"

Sandor growled. Elder Brother had brought this up again last night after the simple shared dinner. He wanted Sandor to work in the smithy with Ifan. Elder Brother had a theory… oh, didn't he just… that to conquer the curse they'd need to conquer the fire that tormented him. Wanted him up close to it day in and day out. Well, fuck that and fuck him!

"Come back boy, I ain't hitting you." He angrily set his foot back on the spade. But Mouse's silence made him look up again.

"What's that?" The boy was holding something out to him on his palm. Something so very small and delicate.

"Bloody Summer child! That's snow… no, that ain't right. Not here, not this far South, not yet." Mouse was too young to understand and just boggled at the tiny flake as it disappeared in the warmth of his palm. But others came, settling in his always scruffy hair and catching on the shortened robe they'd made him.

Sandor looked up to the sky. Snow was falling in lazy spirals. But that was not what chilled him to his bones. Shadowed behind the snowfall was the outline of a castle. A castle forming on the isle, shaped by memories. Just like the snow.

"Winterfell" He breathed, and realised suddenly that the familiar ache was gone, passing away unnoticed as he'd berated the boy.

A bird's call split the air. It was a lament for all that had been lost, a heartbreaking cry from a bird Sandor didn't recognise. It wasn't the small songbird, or even the large black and red predator. He raised a hand to his eyes and squinted up into the sky. It was large and white, its outreaching feathers catching the thermals and flying between the snow. A winter's owl.

She had returned to them.

***

He was dreaming. The slight press of her lips on his was a dream and soon he was going to wake up in the moonlit cell and punch his pillow, before rolling over and trying to claim sleep again. But as he blearily opened his eyes he looked back into her half closed blue ones, smoke curling and whispering about her face and hair. Her lips moved against his as the slight weight of her body lay against him, the smoke clearing as she regained her true form. Her… naked form.

He opened his eyes wide, completely awake now as the girl lay fully on him, only the threadbare sheets of his bed, pulled to his waist, forming a barrier between their two naked bodies. The bareness and fullness of her breasts moved against the black hairs of his chest, the view of them pressed there obscured only by the fall of her hair, long and dark red under the gentle light of the curved moon. It twisted over his arms as she moved slowly against him, touching his face lightly with fingertips as they kissed. Then her lips were urging him on, and his initial hesitancy faded as he responded to her touch. It had been too fucking long! He ached for her, hardened for her, while at the same time concern for her wrinkled his brow.

But she was here, she was alive, and she was naked in his bed. His hands cautiously raised themselves to fall lightly against the swoop of her back, feeling muscles moving beneath skin as she kissed him more deeply. Then he roamed over her back, hips and arse, feeling the maddening softness of her skin and the shapes of her, freed from clothes and courtesies.

He gently pushed at her, making her rise up and lean away from him, allowing him the chance to place lips to her breasts, claiming her perfect pale pink nipples, turned dark in the night. The roughness of his beard on her delicate skin made her gasp and then moan, and he ranged over her, placing mouth, tongue, and even his ruined face against her silken skin. His touches were making her move, swaying like the smoke itself, and every slight shift of her hips brought her closer to his hard manhood till she was touching it through the sheets with the inner parts of her thighs. He kissed her again, moving hands to her hips to bring her lower, bringing that gods blessed part of her between her legs to move against him through the sheet. She shuddered slightly at the hardness of him pressing against the dark red curls there. And he moved his hands to cup her face as he kissed her…

There was a wetness on her face.

"Sansa…" He breathed out her name and she suddenly sobbed, the power of her grief shaking her small body against him. He held her as it was released, petting at her hair with an awkward hand.

"I'm sorry… I'm sorry." Her apologies rambled into nonsense as the tears took her. She began to shiver against him.

"Come here girl." He moved to one side of the narrow bed, a bed that had barely fit him, let alone two. But he moved against the cold stones of the wall, and shaped himself around her as she lay down by him, pulling the sheet up and around her. He covered those curving breasts he still ached to touch, and the intriguing curls and all that they themselves covered… he covered his desire for her.

"I'm sorry!"

He shushed her and pulled her against his broad chest, laying her head against the warmth of him.

"I couldn't cry… I could scream, I could shriek, but I couldn't cry the whole time I went to them. And now I can't seem to stop!"

She shook against him and his tongue tied itself thinking of what to say. He'd never been good at giving comfort. Good at it? He'd bloody never tried to do it before! And what could he say to the girl who'd lost everything she held dear? Had each part of herself torn away with each family member lost to the Lannisters' greed and envy? What could he say to the cursed girl?

"I liked your castle."

He spoke the first words that came to him, cursing himself even as he said them. She was silent for a moment and then pulled away from him to look him into the eyes. Revealing her breasts. His cock stirred again. And now the sheet was over them, and not between them. If she noticed she didn't say. She was more likely upset by his daft bloody comment…

A small laugh came from her lips.

"You… liked my castle?"

"And Mouse liked the snow…" She giggled again and he felt the tension between them passing.

"Though, the monks of the isle were set aflutter like hens during a thunder storm. You shouldn't have scared them like that." He frowned, mock berating her.

"It wasn't real…" The castle and the snow had faded away as the owl had patrolled the skies over the Quiet Isle.

"Do you think that made it any better in their eyes?! You should have heard the prayers that evening… I think you made true believers of some of the uncertain…"

She lay back again and rolled to her side. He shuffled closer, curling himself around her back, her hair in his face and the scent of her a cloud about him. But he still held himself as far back from her arse as he could, not wanting to press his aching manhood where she might not want it.

"Put your arms around me…"

He sighed and moved as told, draping a large muscular arm about her, feeling the touch of her skin against his cock. This was torture.

And then there was something worse. The scales started to tip, and the fire was sparking in his veins. But he had to know.

"Why… why did you come here? This night?"

She paused, and he listened for a moment to her breathing in the near dark of the cell.

"'Family, duty, honour'… The Tully words… And now I have no family but you… and Mouse. And my only duty is to you and my only honour is in caring for you."

He growled then, the fire of his change making him short with her. "If it were for fucking duty..!"

"Duty is not a dirty word, Sandor…" She sighed the words, sleep making her voice thick and heavy. Or was it from emotion? "The dog does his duty because he feels the master's wrath when he does ought else. But true duty comes from love."

He sat up then, pushing his way out of the bed and falling to the floor and his knees. She was with him in a heartbeat, holding her body to his as the change shook it, making it easier for him and stilling his cries.

And when it was over the girl clambered back into the bed, wrapping herself in his sheet as the dog took to his duty, and guarded her eventual sleep.

***

MOUSE

Mouse folded his legs and stuck his knees up and under his robe, wrapping his arms about them as he leant back against the stone wall of the corridor. Through his always too long fringe he looked up at the wooden door next to him, listening and praying.

Muffled bellows had woken him in his cell next door in the monk's quarters. He'd been dreaming about Osric again, his dark shadow following his racing feet… and he was glad of the excuse to hop from his bed and to go and serve his lord. The Patchwork Knight hadn't changed for months and Mouse thought he might need help. Or maybe just someone to shout at…

But then he'd heard her voice… she was back! He'd offered a quick prayer of gratitude to the Seven and apologised for ever doubting that they'd bring her safe to their side again.

"What are you doing…? You're dressed? Come back to bed…" Her voice had been fogged by sleep but clear enough from where Mouse stood, fist raised to knock on his lord's door. That was when he'd scooted down, sitting to one side of the door and worrying over whether to go and return later, or to stay and listen. He asked the Seven for guidance, but on the matter of eavesdropping they seemed strangely quiet today.

"Packing." His voice. Curt and harsh. Oh no, no, no! That wasn't right. He should be 'like unto' one of those fancy bards who trailed the wealthy women around in Oldtown. He should be saying things about her great beauty, or the way her eyes looked like daisies… or something… anything but that snapping voice! Elder Brother had said!

"Packing… where are we going?" Her voice was small, uncertain. Mouse curled himself smaller too.

"North. You have to make your claim now." He was abrupt. Commanding.

"North?" She laughed and it was a chilling kind of laugh that Mouse had never heard from her lips before. "There's nothing in the North for me anymore."

"There's Winterfell, and your bannermen. Your brother was King in the North… Starks've been Kings before. You could call them back together. You've got the blood."

There was silence and Mouse almost forgot to breath.

"The blood?!" She cried at him suddenly, as though something he'd said had hurt her very much. Then her voice was flat, cold. "Robb is dead. My mother is dead. Bran. Rickon. My father. The gods only know about Arya. There's your Stark blood. It's on my father's sword and the Bolton and Frey hands!"

"Winterfell…" he began.

"Is burnt!"

"You could rebuild it!"

"Write a letter… write a letter to the needle women of the North. Tell them to make new banners from fine silks! Forget the direwolf! They follow the songbird now!" That was a dark joke. The kind he might make, but not her. Mouse closed his eyes tightly.

"Why the fuck not?!"

"How many chirps is it for 'attack'? How many for 'ride against their left flank'?! How many for 'rebuild my home'?!"

"I could lead in your name! I'm sworn to you! I'd raise an army for you! But you're just surrendering! _That's_ why you came to me last night… Because your brother's gone and it don't matter any more if you try to fuck the old dog!"

No, no, no, this was all wrong! Mouse screwed his eyes even tighter. The knight thought he was being the Warrior for her, promising an army for his Maiden. But he'd twisted it all wrong and he sounded like the Father, judging and stern.

"Yes! What does it matter?! I could open my legs for any of those bannermen you want to get for me… all of them! And it wouldn't bring me Winterfell or Starks to live in it. You stupid, stupid man! You've travelled with me all this time, all these months, and you haven't… fucking… noticed I haven't bled a single time!"

Silence. Mouse's eyes had jumped open at the sound of her cursing and he stared at the wall across from him. Something had happened, but he wasn't sure what…

"Let's pack up and ride North, as you say. And we'll go find large, loud men of the North who'll willingly follow some accursed, _barren_ , witchqueen who lives half her life as a bird and the other half in darkness!" More of that… that sarcasm.

But when she spoke again her voice was faded and weak. "I'm tired Sandor. I'm tired and I feel… old. So yes, I've surrendered."

"We can break the curse. But not by staying here." His voice was a broken thing.

"I'm tired of moving. I just want to curl up, and let the winter come."

Mouse prayed then, moving his lips as he made the words in his mind. Father, Mother, Maiden, Warrior, Maiden, Smith… Stranger. Help them. Please. Help them!

He heard a creak from the bed. He hoped it was the knight joining her there. He didn't know much about such things. But anything had to be better than this…

Then there were the slight sounds of someone walking across the floorboards of the room. And then a sudden cry of pain. Her cry!

Mouse shot up quickly then and opened the door to peer around it with big eyes.

She was wrapped in his sheets, with bare shoulders and legs, and that long red hair flowing over her, just like the first time he'd seen her in Oldtown. But her face was scrunched up in pain and the knight was moving to her, supporting her as she lifted one foot and rubbed at it, holding at the sheet with her other hand.

"What in the seven hells was that?!" She had cursed again!

He saw his lord pick up something from the floor. It was one of his knights. A mounted one, with flowers on his surcoat that his lord has spent hours carving in with the point of a knife.

"Ser Loras! I'd lost him!" Said Mouse from the doorway. Sansa looked at him then, the harsh lines on her face melting as he dashed in and crashed against her side, giving her a fierce embrace as high up as he could reach.

"Ser Loras…?" She looked up at the Patchwork Knight with a curious look on her face.

"Well… his knights needed someone to defeat…" shrugged his lord.

Suddenly there was the ghost of a smile on her face as she looked at the large man across the room.

And she did not let him go of Mouse, not until the smoke came and her arms faded from around him. Then Mouse stood amazed, staring at the large white wing span of the winter's owl as it settled on the back of a wooden chair.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw the man quickly pushing something from his cheek, but Mouse pretended he did not see. And he would never say that he had, even under pain of death!

***

SANDOR

"Quit buggering around by my doorway, and come in lad!"

Sandor had been standing in the shadows outside the smithy for barely a moment, steeling himself to push open the half door and walk into the heat and noise of it. But Ifan had obviously sensed his new apprentice's loathing of the place and had bellowed out to him. Sandor gritted his teeth and walked in to the hot and smoke filled barn.

"Bloody hell! Why are yer nancying around outside when there's work to be done, boy!" Ifan's words descended into low mumbles and grumbles as he moved around an anvil shaping a horse shoe, the hunch and sharp curve of his back more pronounced as he leant to his work.

Sandor's eyes went immediately to the fire roaring in the hearth.

"Strip off your tunic, you'll not need it here, lad. And take that apron, it'll protect that chest hair all the ladies love…" he laughed darkly before a cough took him.

The blacksmith was only five or ten years older than Sandor, and the use of 'lad' and 'boy' were obviously meant to put him in his place in the man's forge.

Fire.

But Sandor refused to square up to the broad Westerlands man. Ifan had been, after Elder Brother, one of the first on the Isle that Sandor had had contact with after their bedraggled party had made it to the shore. As the morning bells had rung out Sandor had brought Stranger to him, already dreading what anyone would say about the state of the horse's hooves after such a long journey.

Fire.

The stunted man had come out of his smithy, rubbing his greased hands on an old rag and prepared himself to run an experienced eye over the new horse. But then he'd seen the stranger bringing him the destrier and Sandor had watched the blood drain from the man's face. It was only when he'd recovered himself and had made some curt enquiries about when it had last been that Stranger had been cared for, that Sandor recognised the Westerlands accent coming from the dark, burly man. And if he was of the West, then it was highly likely that he'd heard of the scarred man with the black horse. The Lannister's man. Their dog.

Fire.

But as soon as Ifan had been convinced that the dog hadn't come to the isle for him, he had turned the air blue with curses even Sandor hadn't heard before. Cursed him roughly for his lack of care of his horse.

Remembering that, Sandor thought of the lack of care he'd given Sansa. All those fucking months and he'd never thought on her… moonblood. And even if he had of done, wouldn't he have just dismissed it as something she'd just been… taking care of? The truth of such things weren't for men…

Fire.

Maybe she'd forgotten too, or been relieved to have one less thing to concern herself with, apart from finding food and staying safe? And now… with her family gone, it seemed the most important thing to consider. Barren… barren she'd called herself. And her sadness had ripped into him. This morning she'd gone with Mouse to the sept after her change. He'd followed them there, a little ways back though, watching Mouse telling her all about the monks and their isle. And once inside she'd swept up to a high rafter and stayed there, the owl seemingly preferring the cool darkness of the faith's building to the bright outdoors. Watching her up there, and not knowing how to start to heal the wounds between them, that was when he'd decided to follow Elder Brother's politely worded command. He'd turned away from the Mouse and the owl, and walked to the forge like a man to his hanging.

"Aye, you'll start where we all start, boy." Ifan rubbed his hands on the apron covering his thick chest and passed him a large pair of crackling leather bellows. "Tending the fire…"

_Fire._

Sandor looked around quickly. There had to be something else he could do! He spotted a boiled leather bin, filled with odds and ends of armour.

"I could hit the dents out of some of those…?"

"We melt down armour here, boy. Weapons go first, then the armour. We need horse shoes and plough shares on the isle, not knights and wars. 'cept the Elder Brother. He still has his sword. Watches it and thinks on it he does… like one day it's going to turn on'im and bite him…" Ifan muttered as he pushed a wheelbarrow of wood towards Sandor. "No, it's the fire for you. You got to learn how to stoke it and control it. That's where we all start…"

Fire!

The voice in his head was insistent as he took the bellows and placed them into a hole in the side of the hearth that Ifan showed him.

_Fire!_

Pushing at them, and getting the stiff leather to move, he fell into the same rhythm he'd found in gravedigging. And he cleared his head and tried not to think about her… Again.

_Fire!_

_Sansa._

_Fire!_

_Sansa!_

He groaned internally, but he kept still, fighting the urge to rear away from the flames as they took the bellows and grew before him, reaching out with firey fingertips to his sweating face…

"Watch yer eyebrows! Shouldn't think I'd have to warn you of that!"

Ifan gave a dark chuckle, and Sandor wondered if this wasn't part of some slight revenge on the Lannisters' dog. After that first meeting, and berating, Sandor had encountered the large blacksmith around the sept and elsewhere, and exchanged polite nods with him. Then nods were replaced by a 'nice day aint it?', or a quick enquiry about Stranger's hooves. The vow of silence seemed to have been relaxed for the amiable blacksmith and eventually the man had sounded him out with a few choice remarks about the Lannisters and Casterly Rock. Finally, Ifan had started to talk a little of his life in the West. Of his days in the gold mines that'd left him with his stoop and his morning hacking cough. Of the gold that passed through his hands, both there, and later as a smith for their hoard. And of a moment of foolishness that had made him terrified at the sudden shadowy appearance of the Lannisters' Dog at his doorway.

Sandor had reassured him, through some bitter curses aimed at House Lannister, that he had nothing to fear from him, and the two Westerlands men had come to form something that might resemble a gruff friendship.

"Remember, lad, you're the one in charge of her. Don't mean she won't get you occasionally, but in here, you're the firey whore's master!"

Sandor nodded, a brief smirk on his lips.

Fire.

The fear was there still, but it was a quieter voice now. And the day passed quickly in tending the hearth and other tasks Ifan gave him, testing his resolve and desire to work with the most menial of jobs. But he didn't complain. Not once.

The sun was starting to set as the two men left the smithy and washed up quickly in cold water from a fat barrel by the half door. Ifan made some quick comments about his work for the day being 'acceptable' and then ambled off towards the hall and supper.

Then Sandor scanned the sky for her. She would surely leave the sept before the monks turned to their evening prayers… And then he saw the white wings of the winter's owl heading over the terraced fields, which were just being left for the day by monks in dun robes, spades and forks in hand.

For a moment he lost sight of the owl as she spiralled down to the earth.

But then the woman was there, silhouetted against the setting sun as she walked slowly along the shoreline of the isle. She was wearing a dark austere dress he did not recognise, and the skirts of it swept the mud and silt. She was such a lonely figure there in the distance, and he stepped forward as though to walk his path towards her… but then he saw another man already heading towards her. Elder Brother.

He watched as the monk took her hands and greeted her. Then the two of them walked together along the shoreline, his hands occasionally gesturing as though explaining something. Hers were tightly clasped together, resting on her dress, her head slightly down and her auburn hair drifting in the breeze.

Sansa.

Her name in his mind was as insistent as the fear had been in the face of the flames.

Sansa.

Sansa.

_Sansa!_

He had to talk to her. He had to do something to bring her back to herself. He had to tell her how he felt. He had to. He had to.

_Sansa._

***

SANSA

"He's started working in the smithy."

Sansa looked up at Elder Brother in surprise. Over the past two or so hours they had walked under the slight moon at the edge of the island, circling the sept and the other sparkling lights of the Quiet Isle with slow ponderous steps. She had cried. She had ranted. She had even laughed a few times. And Elder Brother had listened, counselled, laughed with her and held her hands when she had wanted to scream. But he had not begun to speak upon a subject until now. He had let what needed to come from her, even when it was silence or shuddering sobs, and not prompted her to one thing or the other. Until now.

"But… but the fire?!"

"I suggested some time back that if he wanted to conquer the curse, he might first think to conquering his fear. It seems that with your return he has taken my words to heart."

They walked on a little way.

"And the smoke… how would I conquer the smoke?"

Elder Brother stopped walking then, and looked deeply into her eyes.

"Who are you?"

"I'm… I'm Sansa Stark…"

"You don't seem certain. When you were the bird for those long months, did you remember the girl?"

"Sometimes… but often times she was just like a dream."

"In King's Landing… who were you?"

"I was… I was whoever they wanted me to be."

"Heyrick, the man I will not even call septon, made this curse for you both. But your changes have always been so very different. And I have to believe that was part of his evil design. So if your knight is burnt by the curse that is likely because that is what torments him the most. What torments you the most could then be the key to conquering the smoke…"

Sansa nodded, and stepped after him as he began to walk again. Silence lay between them for a moment.

"Mouse says that you are a great healer…."

Elder Brother laughed his deep laugh. "I am merely the instrument of the Seven, it is they who heal."

"Do you know much of… women's healing?"

"I have, in years past, helped women in their birthing pains. Some find their way here to give birth to… natural born children."

"Bastards." Sansa blushed a little, and felt ashamed at the judgemental thoughts she'd had on them before. Jon… was her half-brother still alive when all others were gone?

"Indeed."

"And of a woman's moonblood…?" She steeled herself to continue. "I do not bleed."

"There are reasons why that could be so…. Certainly you are far thinner than is right, my lady! Your journey has been very hard on you… But with the curse involved I could not say for certain… are you thinking on children?"

"Once it was a fancy of mine, to name my future children and imagine how they might look like their father." She sighed, remembering that girl. "Now there is only one name I want to give them… Stark."

He nodded. "There are certain books by maesters I have collected over the years. I will see what they might say…"

"You are so very kind to us." Sansa looked around the dark coastline. "Might I walk on a little by myself?"

"It is late my lady…"

"Not for very much longer. And I recall where you said my cottage is to be found."

He bowed to her then, and then set off with long strides back towards the sept.

Sansa breathed in the night air. Mouse had returned to his quarters next door to… she was alone. Alone under the moon and stars. She listened to the screeching sound of some persistent seagulls picking at tiny beasts in the muds of the bay. And when the light rain began she lifted her head to feel it fall upon her skin, feeling the urge to shake it from her feathers. Two months of being on the wing… and even now she felt as though her hair was feather full, that her fingers were long pinions, and that her feet could stretch for prey in the air.

She turned inland towards the dark shapes of the women's cottages. They were odd little buildings, squat and almost round they reminded her of beehives. Hers was not entirely alike to the others though, its thatch perhaps more recently filled, it's door hanging a little more straight and more firmly against the lintel to keep out drafts. She cautiously opened it and found a plain round room, a hearth in the centre with a flume leading up to the roof. A simple bed and a table and chairs were the only furniture, but they too looked as though they had recently been sanded and repainted a bright red. Wall hangings and a thick woven rug brought a little more colour, and in particular she liked the tapestry that showed the Quiet Isle from the shore. She ran fingers over the thick knots of it, wondering what woman had stayed on the Isle long enough to either make it, or long enough to feel the gratitude that the tapestry surely represented.

Some of their packs were on the rug, lit by a single candle on the table, which had burnt down to almost a stub. Had Mouse brought them here and left the candle? Or had… had he?

She knelt and pulled clothing from them. Some of Mouse's torn breeches she'd intended to repair. Her travelling dresses. The Patchwork Cloak.

She pulled the multi-coloured cloak to her, inhaling the scent of his leather and chainmail that lived in it. The ends of it were mud stained, and some of her stitching was fraying now. She ran a finger over neat stitches joining green silk to purple velvet. She'd prayed the whole time she worked on it. _Let this keep him hidden. Let this keep eyes from his face. Let me keep him safe as he has saved me._

She swept the cloak around her and set to working on a fire for the hearth, finding a tinder box by its side as well as kindling. He'd taught her this. The first thing he'd taught her on the road. The first useful thing she'd done and been proud of. The fire crackled into life and she watched it from within the depths of the patchwork hood, entranced and looking into the flames to remember the road they'd been on.

Then the sound of scratching came to her ears. Someone… something was at the door of her small cottage!

She reached into a pack and pulled out the sharp little knife she'd seen among the clothes. She folded it into her palm and opened the door slowly.

It was the dog.

He sat there with a rabbit carcass in his maw, and mud slicking his fur from paw to shoulder.

"Oh!" she cried in surprise as he bounded in and placed his catch by the hearth. She grabbed a towel from the pile left for her and quickly worked at rubbing the mud and chill from him. By the time she was happy with his fur the towel was near black, but at least he wasn't shivering any more.

She set to working on the rabbit, stripping its fur and gutting it as she had done so many times before on the road. Then they sat there together by the hearth, watching as fats spat and the flesh turned a dark brown.

It was only as she carefully tore parts of the rabbit for herself and cut him the hindquarters, that she realised that she had never seen a rabbit on the Isle, nor their warrens. She yelped as she burnt her fingers on the meat, and the dog was there suddenly, licking them with a warm rough tongue.

Then she knew where he had gotten the rabbit. He'd crossed the mudflats, in the dark, risking the sucking mud, obviously getting stuck more than once, to get them from the mainland.

She quickly wrapped her arms about the dog and buried her face in his fur, covering them both over with the patchwork cloak.

***

Sansa woke to the sound of his barely contained pain.

Afraid of another confrontation with him she kept her body still and her eyes closed. After a moment, once his panting had settled, she heard his low wry chuckle.

"If you're going to pretend to sleep girl, you should know that you usually snore…"

"I do not!" She sat up quickly, grabbing at sheets to cover herself. But she wore a sturdy cotton shift and needn't have bothered for them. Sandor on the other hand… it was dark in the windowless cottage, but she could just make out the outline of his naked body as he moved around in the near blackness, searching for something…

"The cloak… the cloak should be on the bed…." She said, quickly screwing up her eyes as he turned back towards the bed, and to her. She heard his footsteps and then the feeling of the cloak being pulled from the bed where it had covered the dog and the girl last night. But then there was the weight of him taking a seat on the edge of the bed, and she peeked through one eye to see what he was doing. He sat there, the cloak draped across his bare lap. And he was… he was looking at her.

She blushed at the intensity of that look. "We should have asked Mouse to leave some of your clothes here as well."

"Didn't know I was coming here until last night. Thought I'd be in my cell and you in yours…" He reached for her cautiously, taking a thick fall of her hair between his fingers and letting it slide over them. She wished desperately for the antler horn comb and to be able to tidy the mess it must be this morning…

"It was the first thing I saw…"

She looked up at him, uncertainty written across her face.

"That morning, when the fat king's wheelhouse finally let us get to Winterfell. I was saddle sore and already bloody bored of the courtesies I'd been expecting to be put through. Who cared about the Northern family with the wolves? Who cared about the next Hand? Who cared about Robert's lost woman? I just wanted wine and a warm place to stop. Then I saw your hair…"

He pulled at it gently, bringing it to his face and sliding the thick strands of it against the good side of his face.

"Such a small thing you were to have such dangerous hair… what that hair would do to men. What that hair did to me…"

He paused then, looking awkward for a moment. "Bet there's men in King's Landing who'd have written you bloody poems for your hair alone. Let alone your pretty face and your… body."

He looked at her in her shift, and she fought the urge to pull the sheets closer.

"I aint a poet, girl. And gods damn me, I brought you a dead rabbit instead of gems and gold!" He laughed darkly and she smiled.

"I _was_ hungry though…"

"Aye lass… and now, are you hungry now?" The predatory look on his face was tempered with something that looked like uncertainty.

She reached up to his face and gently brought him closer with her fingertips until she could touch her lips to his. His kiss was slow, careful after all their fighting. But she remembered the feel of his passion the night before and let her hunger for him show a little. Then he was turning on the bed, moving her to lie down and resting carefully over her as he kissed her.

But then he stopped and she pouted a little.

"Aye, there's the little bird we know." He laughed and ran fingers through her hair and down her neck to her chest, where they outlined the angles of her collarbone and the swell of the side of her breast through the shift. She giggled as it tickled her, and he smiled and carried on his course, bringing his large hands to her side and moving fingers to make her kick and buck beneath him.

"Stop! Stop!"

He paused and then roughly kissed her again, taking her breath for a moment… before so very rudely letting her go again! She sighed and stared deep into those dark grey eyes of his, seeing the wrinkles of humour at their edges.

"Your change will be coming soon, girl."

She nodded mutely, barely breathing. Strange things had been happening as he had touched her and she was feeling excited in a way she couldn't explain. Was this what Mezzi had meant?

"I'm working in the smithy most the day. If you need me, that is…?"

"And if I need… that is… what if I need… _more_?" She hoped he knew what she meant by that.

He laughed darkly. "Told you before, girl. I'd take my time with you if I had the right of it…"

She nodded, a bright and strong blush creeping up from her chest to her face at the thought of so brazenly _asking_ for… _that._

But he was right, the smoke was coming. It took her from her place beneath him on the bed and swirled her around the room in lazy spirals before leaving her as the bird, perched on the edge of the hearth. It took a moment of disorientation before she realised she was… smaller. Smaller than the owl.

She experimentally stretched her wings. They were a rich scarlet red, all over. And then she saw that she was completely red, as though her blush had followed her through the smoke.

As a complex song burst from her she knew she was the songbird again.

"Aye, there's the little bird." He whispered from the bed, sounding a little in awe of her.

***

SANDOR

The days of the next week passed too bloody slowly… and still there was never time enough. He'd spend his days in the smithy watching the sun through the rafters, watching it creep across the sky so slowly he felt his blood boil hotter than the hearth was making it. Ifan berated him for being half somewhere else, and for half arsing his work, but the older man's grumblings fell off of his back like water. As the sun began to set each day, Sandor was the first at the water barrel before stepping quickly, near running, heading towards her cottage where she waited for him.

She'd be by the doorway, hair turned redder yet by the setting sun, a shy smile on her lips as he grabbed her hand and led her insistently inside. There he'd watch as she achingly slowly undid the laces of her bodice. He thought she liked making him wait, liked teasing the old dog after so many… years now… of his baiting and rattling her. But even when her plain brown dress was gone and she stood there just in her shift, he didn't always take the rushed kisses and touches that were expected of him. To just lie on that small bed in that small cottage, on a small nowhere isle… sometimes that was enough. To have her gentle fingers run across his ruined face and not be repulsed by it.

Not that he wasn't hungry for her… but he'd realised recently a different hunger that he needed to satisfy. Especially if he could repay her for her teasing by holding back himself… Such games would often end in laughter and a quick play of lips against each other, or of teasing hands over her chest or his… Before the fire came for him, all too soon.

Then Mouse would knock hesitantly at the door, obeying the knight's extremely strict orders not to visit before sun down was complete. And the three of them, the Mouse, the girl, and the dog, would prepare the fire and make the meal. The dog would listen as Sansa drew the boy's thoughts out of him and taught him new words for his grubby hand to scratch onto scraps of parchment from Elder Brother. And Sandor would feel… at peace.

Once Mouse's yawns had become wide and loud enough the dog would walk him back to his monk's cell, before returning to the cottage and the sleeping girl who always left a space for him at her side on the bed. And in the morning the kisses and gentle caresses, and the laughter and games, and the mock pouting and the teasing… in the morning, they were all there again for the two of them.

Then one day she seemed to have something on her mind as he led her by the hand into the cottage. She lay beneath him as he explored her neck with his lips and kissed the freckles that disappeared under her shift.

"Sandor…"

"Hmmm…" He was distracted, but forced himself to stop and look her in the eyes.

"I've made a decision… and I need you to listen and not speak for a moment while I tell you what it is."

He smiled and lowered himself to her chest again. "I'm sure I can find something to do while you insist on talking, little bird."

He took the opportunity to risk pushing the straps down on her shift and freeing her from shoulders to navel. She gasped, twining fingers in his hair as he set to the task of kissing her breasts and belly.

"I want to adopt Mouse…"

He stopped, and leant back from her, words fighting to tumble out as she had warned him against. He fought his instincts and prepared to listen.

"I know I'm young… but I'm a woman flowered. And if I'd stayed in King's Landing I might well be married to some man of Joffrey's choosing… most likely bearing his child as well by now…"

"That'd better bloody not be regret-" She cut him off by placing a hand over his mouth. Anyone else would have lost those fingers, and he tried to frown menacingly at her. But she ignored the look and carried on.

"I could be a mother by now. And I think I could be a mother to Mouse. I know what you will say. That the North will never recognise him as my heir or a true Stark…. And you'd be right in that… but I don't want to do it for that. I want to do it so that he knows that he will always have a place at my table…"

She took her hand away from his lips, and he slowly, carefully formed what he wanted to say before he spoke.

"Sansa… you don't have a table for him to sit at."

"You are right, of course. Which is why I also think we should look to leaving the isle. Whether we go on to Braavos as we planned, or elsewhere… We need to break this curse. And then I need to go North."

"You've been doing a lot of thinking of late…"

"I'm only taking the advice of my sworn sword. And a lady has to trust her advisors…"

He ignored the coming of the fire and the pain, and leant again to his task, urging slight sighs and moans from her as he held her waist and ran kisses down to where her shift was bunched about her hips.

But there was never time enough, and soon after that the dog was sitting with his lady and the boy by the hearth again, listening as she told Mouse of what plans she had designed for him. He watched as the boy jumped up and leapt into her arms for a bear hug as she laughed and kissed him. He knew then that she was right. Elder Brother had told them both to bring her away from the Crone… and the Stranger. Now she was going to be the Mother in truth. And the Maiden…?

He saw Her in every sigh and moan as he touched her. He saw her returning to life every day they were together on this isle. And he prayed to whatever buggering gods that were listening that he could keep her alive once they left.

***

He watched her walk towards him up the aisle of the sept, and tried to keep his face impassive. She wore heavy silks and satins in greys and whites, the colours of her house, and a long dark cloak with the direwolf embroidered on it by her own hand. She carried a neatly folded bundle, but she still freed a hand to touch fingertips to his as she joined him and Elder Brother by the altar. Sandor tried very hard to not reimagine this scene as her wedding day… or to think on a bedding that might follow…

Some of that true Sansa had reappeared again in the past week as she had planned the ceremony with Elder Brother over late night discussions in his comfortable cave. There was nothing in the Church's rules and statutes about officially recognising an adoption, and Sansa and the old monk had been thick as thieves designing a ceremony for Mouse's change of name. A bastard might be recognised formally by a father through the creation of a writ bearing his signature and seal. But for Sansa the adoption needed to be something bound by vows and seen by the gods. The dog had however mostly napped as they'd argued out the finer points of the ceremony into the night, hoping that she'd be awake enough in the morning to want his company…

Now Sandor stood as man, in simple tunic and breeches, just as Sansa had planned. She'd wanted both of them there as Mouse made his walk up the aisle. And she'd been very careful to only appear at the top of the aisle just as her change was finishing, her feet not even touching the stony floor of the sept until a few steps up the aisle towards them. She'd wanted Mouse to see them together for as long as possible before Sandor's change took him. His Lord and his Lady together. Sandor seemed not to mind that so much.

Then the boy came after her, cautious and skittish like his namesake.

For hours the dog had listened to him question Sansa about her ancestors, testing out new names on his tongue. Edwyle. Torrhen. Jonnol. Walton… Osric had been quickly dismissed. Sandor didn't know what was wrong with the boy's own true name, but Mouse had refused to share it with anyone but Sansa, whispering in her ear like a little tattle tale, and she had agreed that he could take another during the ceremony.

Ifan shared duties with Sandor as witness, but the man had taken a seat on a pew and merely nodded as Elder Brother went through the formalities of asking if they were here to serve that role for the ceremony. The Westerlands man was as uninterested in pomp as Sandor. But Sandor had to at least admit that she'd kept things simpler than he'd feared. After some words from Elder Brother about the Mother, she swore some pretty vows about keeping him safe under her wings. Then Sansa had unfolded the bundle and presented Mouse with a surcoat. It was Stark grey, but she'd wisely avoided embroidering the direwolf on it… these days she might as well have chosen a bloody archery target… instead there was a red trim at the edges that on closer inspection was shown to be a series of small red feathers, tumbling over each other. She helped him put it over his head, and spoke out his new name for the first time.

"I claim you, Harlon Stark, as my son."

Harlon Stark, one of their kings in the North centuries back, she'd explained. It was a grand, heavy name for the small boy, and Sandor suspected he'd still think of him as the scampering little Mouse. His own gift had been given to him earlier in the day, and he watched Elder Brother's face carefully for complaint as the boy fixed a new leather belt around the surcoat, and adjusted the plain shortsword there. Sandor had rescued the ugly, stumpy blade from the shoreline before Ifan had had a chance to melt it away. He'd sharpened it and rewound a leather length around the hilt. The boy was his squire and he bloody well needed a blade… and lessons on its use given how quick he'd been to near take off his head with it… whatever Elder Brother thought of that.

But then his change was coming and he nodded to Sansa before making his way to a shadowy room at the rear of the sept where they kept dusty old tomes and spiders.

***

"My lady! I did not know that this small isle had such a lovely guest!"

Sandor looked up at the perfumed fool in green and fought the urge to jump for his throat. The dog and the girl had been sitting in the hall with the other monks after the ceremony, joining together for a simple meal as hymns were sung as if it were any other night. Mouse was however charging about showing off his gifts and instructing the silent smiling monks on his new first name. He had sense enough not to use his new house name, which gave Sandor a momentary feeling of pride in the boy. Sansa had also changed her dress… he did not want to think how… for a simpler woollen thing, more modest than her silks and satins. And the direwolf cloak was also gone, back to where ever she had drawn that from.

She'd been sat in companionable silence with him, one hand drifting to the head of the dog lying on the floor to gently stroke his ears, when the man with the lute had come over to her. Sandor had met him once before, as a man… the lute player had arrived on the isle on the ferry that had brought Sansa's grey cloth and red threads from Maidenpool at Elder Brother's request. For some reason the fucking idiot had thought that his music might be welcome entertainment for an isle of silent monks… Elder Brother had not entirely disillusioned him, and Sandor wondered if he had wanted the foppish bard to play that night as a part of their sly celebration of the adoption. Or perhaps he thought the Maiden in Sansa might like his music…

But he knew her well enough now to feel the tension and dislike emanating through her fingers and onto his head.

"Who do I have the pleasure of addressing, might I ask?" She went to answer, stumbling over lies, but then Elder Brother was there.

"This is Jeyne Hill, the natural born daughter of one of our benefactors… who wishes to remain anonymous… she visits the isle to make sure we have all that we need."

"Delightful." He reached for the fingers of her free hand, and Sandor admired her patience as she allowed him to kiss them. He had not made the mistake of trying for her occupied hand. The dog in the shadows underneath them would have made quick work of the man's fingers, and ruined his musical career for good.

"What will you play for us this evening…?" She paused, not knowing what to call him. Sandor had some suggestions.

"Ennett. Call me Ennett my lady." He strummed dramatically at his lute. "I shall see what musical excellence your beauty inspires in me." He bowed to her then, and took his seat on a chair at the top of the hall, before strumming a few experimental chords.

Then the first bars of the Bear and the Maiden Fair rung out, followed quickly by a loud cough by Elder Brother that stopped him in his tracks. He shrugged and turned then to Florian and Jonquil, which Sandor knew Sansa liked, at least. But after that he turned to other songs unfamiliar to the dog. The King in his Castle, the Peasant on the Farm. The Waves on the Shore. The Lady of Love. Some fucking upbeat ditty about the Rose and the Lion, which referred to the King's forthcoming wedding. And then he played that fucking Lannister song, the Rains of Castamere. Sandor heard a clatter as Ifan left the hall loudly. If Sansa was unhappy at the reminder of her time in King's Landing she was trying hard not to show it.

Then the fool starting another unknown song, a mournful ballad. Sandor was barely listening to the lyrics until Sansa tensed beside him, and then gasped as though struck.

"Now there once was a time when the northerners sang  
of a king they had crowned: more a boy than a man,  
More a pup than a wolf, with the cold of the realm in his eyes

He'd broken a vow to the lords of the Twins:  
Wed a stranger, a beauty, but a promise there'd been  
So the Lord Frey demanded a bridegroom as compromise

And the timbers groaned  
River wind softly moaned,  
"Oh, the King in the North doesn't know  
How a red wedding goes…"

Sansa stood quickly, and the man stopped in his singing and looked at her pale face, surprise on his face.

"Excuse me… excuse me, I feel a little unwell. Please do continue…" She marched quickly to the doors and then fled as he took up his music and carried on in his fluting voice as the dog followed her out.

"Well, the feasting was plenty and the singing in tune  
And the Stark wolves, they howled 'neath their northern moon  
So loud were their cries that the closing of doors was drowned out…"

***

He walked by her side as she cried, her steps taking her to the muddy shoreline. Eventually she sat down on a grassy hillock and let him creep closer to her side.

"I am well, I am well…" She whispered, almost as though to reassure herself more than him.

They sat there for a long while, under the cold white moon, until she started to shiver. He hoped she would decide to head to the cottage where she could set a fire. But she stayed, staring out at the mudflats, lost in thoughts.

Then she started suddenly, getting to her feet and running down to the muds, her skirts flapping behind her. The dog raced after her and caught up with her as she began pulling on a dark shape in the mud. Whatever it was, it was moving slightly. Sansa heaved at it as the useless dog weaved around her, worrying as the mud pulled and sucked at her legs, nosing at her as she fell down in her efforts. But then finally the thing was given up by the mud and Sansa pulled it onto the grass and safety. Sansa was exhausted, half frozen and covered to her waist in the dark, sticking mud. But what she'd saved was in a worse state, almost all covered over by the dark sludge and barely recognisable. Then Sansa pushed at the mud thickened rags swamping it, and the dog saw the wild eyed woman beneath, more fouled swamp creature than human.

"Fetch Elder Brother! Now!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [n.b. the lyrics in this chapter are borrowed from Paola Bennett's Timbers & Woods, her Red Wedding Ballad. Please check out this song and her others at https://soundcloud.com/paola-bennet/ ]


	17. Chapter 17

SANDOR

The ragged woman sat on Elder Brother's bed, curled up on herself, rocking as Sansa and the old warrior considered her. Sandor had already dismissed her as just some witless fool in his head, but he was sure that Sansa was going to break her heart trying to help the woman.

"Her name's Marta." Elder Brother sighed as the woman's mumbling continued. "She's from a small holding outside of Maidenpool. A few months back her husband came here to beg my help. She'd been a perfectly normal woman, wife to a farmer, no one of note. And then one day her wits just… broke. Beyond keeping her still with sleeping draughts, there wasn't much to be done…"

Sansa reached for the woman's mud caked, talon-like hands and the dog growled in warning. But the woman smiled a moonfaced smile and let her hands be taken. Sansa pulled at her sleeves and exposed harsh rope burns around her wrists.

"By the Seven…!" exclaimed Elder Brother. "I left them instructions on making the draughts… they needn't have bound her!"

"Pretty lady… pretty lady…" The woman smiled up at Sansa again. "Pretty lady…"

"She must have risked the mudflats to get here…"

"The Seven must indeed have guided her path!" Elder Brother exclaimed.

The dog huffed but they ignored him. He'd made it across, getting stuck only a few brief times. It wasn't as impossible as they thought.

"Pretty lady… come dance with me. We'll watch the tourney and pick the winner!" She laughed, and it turned into a hacking cough. Elder Brother moved to his stores of tinctures and foul smelling liquids, clattering among the bottles as he chose and mixed them. "Back under the blades'shadows. Back again. Slice, slice, slice… even she won't sit still as they prick her back. She'll squirm and squirm, and think of the orange tree…." She hummed a little melody and laughed again. "Pretty Lady… run pretty Lady!"

Elder Brother returned with a concoction for her, and between the two of them they managed to force it down her neck as the woman flailed at them. "No! No! Listen and hear!"

A fist caught Sansa in the face, and the dog was on his feet, growling at the foul smelling woman.

"Ah! Ah! There's the dog. Bite your masters and their servants. Get at them with teeth of steel and breath of fire! Fiddle diddle dee!"

Sansa turned back to her, a hand still held to the cut on her lip.

"What did she say?"

"Oh yes, listen and hear!" The woman was struggling against the drugs Elder Brother had given her, fighting the sink into sleep. "Run pretty lady. Run to the river and catch a fish. Is he silver? He is not!"

She was slumping on the bed and Sansa knelt quickly before her, grabbing at her shoulders and shaking her, ignoring Elder Brother's protests. Sandor was surprised at the strength in her arms.

"What did you say?!"

"She's waiting for you. Go west to go south. Before the giant rides the lion. Before the end of things. Before the worms wiggle into the light." Drool was coming from her mouth as she lisped out the words. "In the deep, dark wood. Find them there. Ektor…"

And then she was gone, and Sansa let her unconscious body drop to the bed. A ruby red drop of blood sat on her bottom lip and she wiped it away, her mind somewhere else as she stained her sleeve with it.

"Ektor… I had forgotten!" She sat on the bed, and the dog came to her, nuzzling at her hands as she sunk deep in thought. "The night the Courtesan's Wish was grounded in the bay. A man grabbed me… A Smiling Brother. But I had forgotten what he said to me… 'I can finally take your power back to Ektor'… how… how could she know that name?!"

Elder Brother made the sign of the Seven. "There are things afoot here that only the gods know the truth of." The dog growled dismissively, but even Sandor had to admit there was more power in the world than he'd ever known about, or cared about before. Give him steel over magic. But then… she had known about the dog and the fire…

"She told me to run to the river… to catch a fish. A fish that was not silver…" She gasped, realising something. "My great uncle… Brynden Tully! He is known as the Blackfish after some argument with my grandfather! Riverrun!"

She knelt quickly in front of the dog. "There's something you have to do tomorrow, when you are a man again…"

***

"Her red hair, her pink lips,  
Her full breasts,  
Her swaying hips…"

Sandor growled as he approached the wandering musician who was sat on one of a bunch of tree stumps by the women's cottages, scratching his piece of charcoal at a well rumpled piece of parchment. Not only was the song fucking dire, he was fairly certain who the fool was writing it for. And who he was waiting for here, by the beehive shaped buildings. But Sansa had tasked him with talking with the lute player, and as much as he would have enjoyed just beating the information out of him, he was prepared to at least try it her way.

"Morning…"

The lute player, Ennett, jumped a little at his gruff greeting, looked up at him in his monk's robes and took in the size of him. Good, let him be wary of disappointing him.

"Good morning brother monk! And such a fine morning it is for my artistic endeavours!" The man's voice grated on Sandor's nerves like a whetstone on a blade, sharpening and readying them for battle.

"Listened to yer playing last night in the hall. It was… good."

"Oh really?! I do not recall a brother of your stature there last night. Nor one of your… features." He stared warily at Sandor's scars, and the Hound fought the urge to block that stare with his fist.

"I was in the back of the hall…" He attempted a friendly smile, and Ennett's caution only seemed to increase. "I wonder… friend… Elder Brother keeps the concerns of the realms away from us on this isle, and I am curious for news. Surely a musician of your skill has played for some of the great houses and cities?"

"Ah, ah yes! I have played King's Landing many a time. In Highgarden they call me the Green Bard!" Sandor laughed internally, perhaps they only meant that he seemed to be an amateur… "My rendition of the Rains of Castamere has been well received in all the lands I have visited. Although I doubt they'll like it in the North, not any more!" He chortled as though they were sharing a joke, and Sandor wanted to stamp on his face.

"What news from there?"

"Little now. The upstart Stark is dead and his rebellion with him. Bolton holds the North for the crown. And I hear that the Stark bitch is to be wed to Ramsey Sno- Bolton."

"The red head…?"

"Ah yes, not that one… I'd forgotten about that fabled red hair. I wonder if it is alike to Jeyne's…." A sneaky look crossed his face. "But brother monk! I am an entertainer by trade. Would you have me share stories and not take payment?"

Sandor wanted to pay him with steel, but he reached into his robe to find his coin purse.

"You mistake me. I will share stories for stories." He leant closer to Sandor and whispered conspiratorially. "Tell me of the bastard girl. You see, you may not know this, being a sworn monk of the Faith and all, but sometimes you can make a bastard take a tumble with you. But its so much harder if they have convinced themselves that their rutting fathers passed some of that nobility on to them in the blood. The ones from lower houses are much more grateful for your attention! So tell me, is she the natural born daughter of some lordling, or some great house?!"

Sandor was ready to stab him in that pointy face when he heard the trill of the bird somewhere close.

"Can't say I know…"

The bard sighed, "I suppose I'll just have to try my hand. A ballad written in her name will no doubt loosen her thighs. It's worked before…"

Try that, thought Sandor savagely, and I'll loosen your jaw.

"Where were we? Oh, yes, the red one. She's wed to Lord Tyrion Lannister now. A better match than she could have hoped for after her father and brother turned traitor, I'll say!"

"Ah yes… you sang of the wedding. Were all the traitorous kin slain, then?"

"I suppose not since Riverrun is at siege…" he shrugged, not really caring about it or the conversation. "Her cottage is here, is it not? Perhaps I'll call on her this night… when it gets nice and dark… and play a song to get a song."

"I wouldn't. That dog of hers, its a vicious bastard. It'd have your face off before you can sing a fucking note…" He had half a mind to see if he could call the fire now and show him the beast.

The thin man paled a little as Sandor stood to go.

"Maybe… maybe I'll leave it. She ain't that pretty…"

Sandor nodded, and as he walked away he heard the bard strumming again at that seven times damned lute.

"Her _golden_ hair, her pink lips,  
Her full breasts,  
Her swaying hips…"

***

SANSA

Sansa watched him from the doorway, reluctant to interrupt him as he beat a hammer at some piece of metal held tight against an anvil with a loud, clanging rhythm. She flushed as she took in the broadness of his back and the way his muscles moved under the sheen of sweat and the black streaks of grease, oil and ash. She was watching… and it was very unladylike of her. But a defiant part of her no longer cared.

He paused and she spoke up. "The hour is late my lo- my Lord". She cursed herself for stumbling over words and sounding unsure.

He turned, startled, near dropping the padded hammer to the floor. "Girl! I had not realised the time. Ifan is taking a day of rest… and with my armour lost with the Wish I had thought to reform some of the isle's findings before he melts them to make more fucking spades." He held up the piece, the shape of which Sansa did not recognise. "Though these bloody dregs will make me more the Patchwork knight than ever… not a single piece matches another!"

He softened the bark of his voice. "Forgive me lass, the day got away from me… Did you wait long at the cottage?"

"It is no matter-"

With two quick strides he was in front of her, pushing her insistently backwards towards the rough wooden upright beam of the doorway. She felt it hard against her back as he lifted her, covering her over with his scarred chest as he claimed her mouth and took the words from her. A moment's concern for her dress, pressed against that oiled chest, passed extremely quickly.

"It matters…" he whispered against her mouth.

He raised her up as though she weighed not a thing and she exclaimed at the sudden movement. Then his hand was on her thigh, pulling it beside his hip as he moved against her. If she had flushed before at the impropriety of watching him so blatantly, her face burned seven times more over for this act! Then his hand was seeking its way under her skirts, pushing aside the many layers under her overdress. He seemed lost…

"What in the seven hells…?" He grumbled, and she giggled, unable to help herself.

But then his hand was there. Oh gods. His hand was there, cupping the swell of her… of her posterior. Her hind quarters… her… her arse!

He did not let up in his kiss, which was sending her spinning off into the sky, but somehow he found the focus to work fingertips under her small clothes. Tracing circles just inside the fine edge of the silk he made a moan fall from her lips. He was so close to… so close to down there! And again she felt that same curious tension between her legs…

Suddenly he was letting her down, the tips of her toes landing on the recently swept floor as he removed hands from under her skirts and from around her waist.

"Sorry lass… we left it too late today." He was grimacing slightly as his pains started, and she took his hand as the fire roared through him. In the midst of his change the low fire of the hearth spat and sparked, rising higher and casting dark shadows on the walls of the smithy. One shadow twisted, cracked and reformed as the dog.

***

Sansa was trying very hard not to find humour in the sight of the dog considering the large wrinkled maps laid out on the floor between the chairs, but she was failing… and she sometimes had to dig nails into her palms not to giggle. In the candle light of Elder Brother's warm cave the three of them had been considering possible routes for hours now. Marta's words still rumbled through their minds, and as the drugged woman slept in his bed, Elder Brother repeated them for the umpteenth time.

"'Come dance with me. We'll watch the tourney and pick the winner. Back under the blades' shadows. Back again. Even she won't sit still as they prick her back. She'll squirm and think of the orange tree….'"

"If she'd said lemon tree I might have thought she meant something about me… lemon cakes were always my favourite. But oranges… I just don't understand it. Has she said any more since?"

"I let her drift back to consciousness in the day. But she barely spoke. Only quiet 'yes's' and 'no's' and polite 'thank you's'. Whatever possessed her to risk her life to come here and speak, it seems to have passed." Elder Brother frowned.

"'Back again'… under the blades' shadows." A chill ran through her veins and a sick feeling sunk into her belly. "Could she mean the iron throne?" Sansa drifted a finger over maps and traced a line to King's Landing. "'Go west to go south…'. Does she mean us to go back to King's Landing… south of here?"

The dog's fur bristled and he gave three deep barks. Three for danger.

She stroked his back. "I know. But she said we needed to go west to go south. Riverrun is west of the isle in the Riverlands." Her voice cracked and she looked down at the dog, before raising her eyes to Elder Brother, tears prickling at the corners of them. "I don't want to go back to King's Landing…"

The dog rested his muzzle in her lap.

She swallowed back tears and steeled herself. "And what lies in the 'deep, dark wood'? She said 'them', but before that she also said that 'she' waits for me…" Sansa sat back heavily in the chair, rubbing her temples.

"The hour is late my lady… perhaps you should think on bed. You've made the decision to go to Riverrun. Perhaps the rest of it does not matter. Your great uncle will take you in…"

"If we can pass the siege!"

Elder Brother nodded, and traced lines across the maps. "Avoiding Harrenhal… I do not know who rules there now… And Harroway… there is not much quiet land you can cross between here and Riverrun. Following the Red Fork of the Trident would be simplest…"

The dog barked again. Three times.

"Simple is not safest. Indeed." Elder Brother sighed. "You could stay. At least until the kingdoms are settled again. You could forget about Marta's ramblings… perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps the gods do not guide her…"

"No. It is time we left. Perhaps one day in the future I will regret leaving the isle. And I will always be grateful to you for taking in three lost souls Elder Brother. But it is time. As you say, the hour is late. It is time we took to the road again."

Elder Brother nodded, and stood as she did. She embraced him, closing her eyes and praying silently as she did.

_Please. Please let this be the right thing to do._

And the dog was at her side as she walked out into the chill night.

***

If Sansa could have cried, she would have done. The small red bird watched the Patchwork Knight join his squire and the monk by the shore line. She was perched in a swaying chestnut tree, using the high vantage point to take one last look at the isle. The orchards, the windmill, the wooden sept… She tried to burn each into her memory, but she feared they would fade all too soon, only to be replaced by harsher memories yet to come. King's Landing…

And the knight. Her reluctant knight. She tried to capture him as he was now. The mismatched armour covered over by the mud stained silk and velvet cloak of numerous colours. He'd finally found mail and studded leather again, telling the bird when he came across them that he disliked breastplates because they restricted his arms too much. But she wondered if they didn't remind him of the Kingsguard armour he'd left behind in the Red Keep, and all that it had meant.

The pieces he'd found were shinier now that he'd worked on them, polishing them and pushing out the dents, but still the different styles made him look shabbier than he ought. He'd also found a greatsword stuck in the mud on one of the dog's hunts for armour, but had turned the elaborate thing down in favour of a plainer blade found later. He'd grumbled about how the dragons on the hilt had ruined its balance, but Sansa would have wished for finer steel for the sworn sword protecting them, even if, as he said, it was better not to draw the eye on the road.

And Mouse. Harlon. Running about, eager for the off. His own shortsword was blunted already from his practices against dread knights disguised as the trees of the isle. He'd kept his practice from Sandor and Elder Brother, but the isle was small and she'd heard the thwack of his sword and the muffled curses, caught from Sandor no doubt, when it sprang back from the bark, and from his unprepared hand.

He wore his new grey surcoat with the red embroidered trim. The two of them looked like two heroic adventurers as they stood by the side of Stranger and the old pony that Sandor had forced coins in Elder Brother's hand for. Mouse had renamed him 'Ser Brave'… and neither Sandor nor Sansa had the heart to tell him Ser Brave was actually Lady Brave.

Two heroic adventurers about to set forth into the kingdoms again and all Sansa wanted to do was cry.

Last night she had, breaking down as she said her final goodbyes to Elder Brother. Marta was there, a mute shadow now, one that followed Elder Brother and seemed to be learning which books to bring him and which herbs he required. He had not the heart, he had said at another time, to send her back to those who bound her, so she would stay on the isle. Sandor had gruffly joked later that he was just glad Sansa wasn't going to adopt her as well, bringing them another stray to feed… But that was for Mouse's ears and he'd ruffled the boy's hair after.

Finally, Sandor said his parting words to Elder Brother, Mouse hugged the old monk, and they mounted up. She took to wing. She knew now how to guide them to shore, and it was not long at all before the horse's hooves stepped up again onto grass and earth. They'd gone to the southern shore of the bay and turned further south to avoid sighting Saltpans in the north as they headed west. The day was overcast and quiet, and eventually Sansa had to fill the silence with song.

"She seems happy" Mouse was saying, already setting into the apples from the isle's orchards. Lady Brave reached back for one with her stumpy head and the boy fed her quickly before Sandor could see.

"Perhaps."

"Are you happy to be travelling again?"

"Perhaps."

"I've never ridden my own horse before. Can I gallop?"

"Only if we're chased."

Mouse seemed to consider this for a moment, then said, "How do you gallop?"

Sandor laughed. "For now just stick to staying on its back. Fret your head about the rest later."

"Will you teach me?"

"Aye."

"And how to fight with my sword?"

"I'll teach you. I'll teach you how to fight men instead of trees…"

Mouse blushed, and the bird flew down to settle on Sandor's shoulder. His new shoulder armour… a pauldron, or was it a spaulder?… on that side had some odd shapes to it and she ruffled her feathers as she found her feet.

"Careful there, girl."

"When can I have my own armour?"

Sandor sighed. "You keep eating our supplies and we won't have coin for anything."

"But I can have some armour?" Sansa chirped a yes. She wanted him all covered in steel on this journey, even if he was too small for it.

"I'll buy you some chainmail and you can drag it along behind you. Now hush! The road is a long ways and I don't want you bloody well running out of breath before we get to Riverrun!"

Sansa could not laugh. But she would have done if she could.

***

Harrenhal. Even the name chilled her.

Near three times as large as Winterfell, with five twisted towers that reached into the sky for her as she flew past, Harrenhal was in some places a melted dark monster, and in others she could see ant like men below scurrying about to tasks.

But they'd drifted too far south in their riding, and Harrenhal had loomed over the horizon as the three of them had taken shelter from the rain under dark and blighted trees. Only she could get close enough to see if it was friend or foe who now held the near ruin. So on scarlet wings she'd fought against the rain to make paths over the curtain like walls and the wide expanses of the courtyards. But still… she kept on the move. As a bird she was normally of little note, but she worried that the new overall redness of her feathers might entice some bored archer to have a play at target practice.

She saw green banners, waterlogged and hanging low as she banked around them. They hid their sigils from her eyes, and she searched again. Finally she found one spread against stone work and her red feathers were met by silver… silver mockingbirds, repeated over a green background. There could be only one lord of Harrenhal. Lord Baelish, the man they called Littlefinger. Her mother's childhood friend.

She did not know what to make of this development, but thought it best to return to Sandor and Mouse to share the news and see what the Hound would make of it. But as she banked to sweep back to their hiding place she spotted another banner. It had half fallen down, one corner reaching down for its cousin at the bottom. It had been forgotten perhaps by the guards below who'd replaced the others with the green and silver. But she recognised the lower leg of the flayed man of the northern house. House Bolton had held Harrenhal once.

Sansa flew back to the woods with as much haste as she could manage, putting the lowering sun behind her.

She found Sandor hunting for fire wood further back amidst the dark trees. Mouse had been left in a clearing with the horses, obviously no longer entrusted with the task after Tarth. Sandor was cursing under his breath as he picked up dropped wood and dismissed them as too damp, throwing them away. She swept down to a low branch nearby and sang out a short greeting.

"Made it back without an arrow between your eyes then?" He sounded gruff, but she thought she heard relief under his tone. He looked up at the grey sky between the outstretched arms of the twisting trees. "It'll be time soon."

He pulled off his patchwork cloak and spread it on the ground under a tree. She saw that he had already removed the mismatched pieces of armour, his tunic newly stained in places by the remains of rust on it he'd missed.

"We can sit a while, if you like…?" And he took a seat on the cloak, bringing an apple from a pocket and carving at it with a short knife. Moments later she took a piece from his hand and settled down in front of him, tucking her legs underneath her.

"You're still too far away, lass…" She smiled and moved closer, settling with her back against his chest. He continued to pass her parts of the apple as quickly as she ate them, giving her the larger share.

"What did you see?"

"There's men there. And the banners show mockingbirds on green."

"Littlefinger." Sandor's contempt for the man was clear.

"He was a friend to my… my mother…"

"Aye, I've heard that. Do you think we ought to go to his men, and seek their protection in his name…?"

She paused. She remembered the Lord's closely cropped beard, his fine clothes, the way he had warmly greeted her on her arrival at King's Landing.

"He spoke to me very prettily in King's Landing…" Sandor tensed behind her, "But he never helped me. They call him Littlefinger… but he never raised so much as a finger to help me!"

"Can't say I spoke that prettily to you, little bird…"

"But you did help me!" She thought for a moment "House Bolton held Harrenhal before Lord Baelish. Does he have the men to take the castle from Bolton hands by force?"

Sandor paused. "He's good with coin, could be he bought himself some. But no, the Fingers don't support a large number of men. I suppose he could have begged them from the Vale…"

"It was given to him. Harrenhal was a gift from the crown, I am sure of it. We can't go there." Sansa was convinced now and settled back against the warmth of him.

"He sat on the King's small council. I'd say he was always a Lannister man through and through."

"You did not think we should go to them… but you did not say!" She sat up again suddenly, twisting to look at him.

"It was your decision to make. But no, I don't trust anyone, friend of your mother's or no."

"I need your opinions Sandor. Even when I choose not agree with them!" She pushed at his chest a little and he captured her hands, twining her fingers with his larger ones. She pouted and he kissed the pout away.

"You swore to serve me… all of you, including your mind. I have need of your experience and knowledge!"

He laughed darkly and she blushed. "I did not mean…"

"You said all of me, my lady…."

But then a distant shout interrupted them, and both got to their feet quickly.

"Mouse?!"

"No, that was a man's shout" Sandor grimaced. "Damn it! The fire's coming."

"Can you find Mouse by smell? When you are the dog?"

"Boy bathes so rarely, it shouldn't be difficult." He nodded.

She smiled a little at his comment, and then steeled herself. _Come_. She whispered. _Come._

And the smoke came, winding its way from her and seeping between the boughs of the trees as a thick haze that turned them into ghosts of themselves. Moments later the dog plunged into it, vanishing into the white and grey blindness.

***

SANDOR

Gods, it fucking _hurt._

Blood was bubbling at his muzzle with every wretched breath, the black shaft of the arrow moving in time with his labouring lungs as the dog lay on his side. He could see it just out of the corner of eyes, his vision already fading to black at the edges. No, no, _no_ …

Mouse was still standing in that awkward attempt at a fighting stance, the shortsword waving towards the smiling man in the green surcoat. Through the smoke, laying around the trees, the dog saw the shapes of the other two. They wore no colours. They were stalking around Stranger, moving him cautiously back towards the tree line as jumped and bucked. The fourth, the one who'd used the bow, was almost beneath their feet now, his head caved in by the destrier's front hooves. Lady Brave, the stupid mare, was nowhere to be seen.

The captain of this pack, the one in the mockingbird surcoat, was near laughing now, watching the stubby shortsword as Mouse jabbed it at him. With one sweep of his longsword, the man took it from the boy's hands with a ringing blow that had him cradling them after.

"I was just asking you about yer fucking purpose in these woods… before yer fucking dog went for me!" The captain held up his forearm, the dog's teeth had ripped away cloth but mail gleamed below. "So how about we have that little chat now… before I hang you for a poacher!"

"I'm no poacher! I'm a squire!"

"Squire to who, boy?!" The man laughed coldly. "These are Harrenhal lands. Seems to me your lord knight should have shown his face at the castle gates before now. We could have laid on a feast for him… maybe one made from his ugly hunting dog!"

Mouse looked down at the dog, despair clear on his face as he took in the state of him. I've had worse… he wanted to say to the boy… I've had worse and made it through. But he wasn't sure it was the truth.

Then, before he could see her, he could smell her scent wafting on the smoke. And he screamed inside. No! Go away! Don't come here.

But his lady emerged from the smoke into the clearing, her eyes going straight to his and her face paling as she saw the arrow stuck in him.

"What's this now? More poachers?" The captain and the men laughed at his jest. "We hang poachers usually… but it may be that there's other punishments we can think of for you, girl!" One of the men by Stranger made a gesture with his hand and mouth, and his companion laughed, showing rotten teeth and blackened gums. Sandor should have felt the fire and rage in his veins… but his veins were failing him now.

Sansa moved quickly to the dog's side and knelt beside him as the captain rushed towards her.

"Tip the scales! Sandor! Tip the scales!" she whispered frantically.

Then the man in green had her, pulling her to her feet and grabbing at her chest as she struggled against him.

Sandor called for the fire, both dreading the change and knowing that the man might be better able to survive the arrow. But it would not come. Only darkness was coming for him, narrowing his vision and making it seem as though the girl and the sobbing boy were miles away from him.

But still, he saw the exact moment that she summoned her own part of the power. The stillness of her limbs even as the captain pushed her towards a tree trunk with rape on his mind.

Her hair, already loose and flowing, moved by its own will. The smoke all around them whispered and stirred, moving faster and faster until it picked up leaves and made the men cover their faces.

Then the captain was flung back from her, hitting a tree across the clearing with the sound of breaking branches. But it was the man's neck that was broken, snapped and leaving him like a puppet with his strings cut. He slumped down into a thorny bush, dangling over it with an outstretched arm as though he was calling for help.

She turned to the other two men, and the smoke whipped out towards them.

Then he could feel the fire. Then he could call it and force his change back into a man. He roared through the cracking of the change before running quickly to her. He knocked her from her path, and swept up the captain's sword, making it glow with a dull redness and heat that ranged from hilt to tip of blade as he touched it. The first man went down to the naked man's rage, slashed across the throat, his blood bubbling and boiling as it came out of him. The second turned to run and his spine was cut through, robbing his legs of motion. He dragged himself forward for a moment, but then the red heat was stabbing him through the heart and he ceased.

Sandor fell to his knees, blood gushing out from the widened wound about the arrow. Sansa was there then, pulling the shaft from him, covering her hands all over in his blood. He fretted for a moment about that, trying to form words to tell her to clean her hands, that skinning the rabbit for supper had left her stained… but nothing came out. Then she was weaving bandages about him, tightening them securely about his bare chest… no, not bandages… not linen… smoke. She was using the smoke to stop the blood.

She helped him to lie down, covering him over in more smoke as the boy stumbled over, tears on his cheeks.

"Is he going to…?"

"No! No he's not!" She was muttering to herself as she pushed his long dark hair from his face. "We heal faster… we heal faster. On the road the bird healed fast. He has to heal!"

She barked at the boy. "Water, from Stranger's saddle. Now!"

As the boy scrambled to the agitated horse, Sansa became the entirety of what he could see.

"Endless days and nights he said. _Endless_. So you can't leave me… you can't!"

She tipped the flask to his mouth and he drank some. He remembered giving her water after their blind charge from King's Landing. Eventually giving her water… Before they'd even met the septon. Before the curse. _Eventually_ , because he'd forgotten to take care of her.

And now she looked so pale, and so worried. Had any one ever worried about him before? Then she grimaced and he was the one to worry.

"The scales are tipping" She sounded hoarse, as though the smoke had gotten to her lungs. And then smoke did curl from out of her mouth. Her change took her violently, just as it had done after the Courtesan's Wish had been run aground. Parts of her were pulled into the smoke instead of lazily drifting into it, and she struggled to get words out before she changed completely.

"I would have… I would have killed them all… for hurting you!"

And when the bird formed itself and flew to a high branch to scream, it was the black and scarlet bird. The Stranger's bird.

An ill omen he thought, the idea rocking him with painful laughter. His wits had no doubt fled him if he thought that! But he was laughing, which meant he was breathing. And with the smoke tied about him, holding him tighter than actual bandages, he found that he could sit up a little. Mouse fussed about him, and he sent the boy to find clothes. They could not stay here and risk being found beside the men's bodies.

As Mouse helped him to stand and to dress he heard movement deeper in the woods, echoing through the smoke. He hoped it was just Lady Brave, but then the sounds of men talking came closer. Fucking hells, all the gods were against them this day!

The pony did suddenly appear then, no doubt spooked by the same men. Sandor nodded to the boy and they both mounted up, the warrior holding his side over the smoke as the movement sent pain flaring through him again. But he could stand. He could walk. Gods help him, he was healing. And now he had to see if he could ride.

"Boy… you wanted to gallop?"

"Aye ser…?"

"Good, because very soon we're going to be chased!"

***

The rain was a cold hard wall driving against their faces as they pushed the horses hard through the night. However, Stranger was forced to keep to the mare's pace and fought Sandor's hands to take his head the whole time. Sandor was worried about Mouse though, the small boy just a bundled up shape on the pony's back as he clung on for his life. So Sandor's arms groaned their own song of pain as he pulled Stranger's head back, joining with that of the arrow wound in his side as the rain stung their eyes.

And yet… the bird flying ahead of them seemed unbothered by the weather. Its pitch black feathers seemed to slice easily through the air that seemed to be more water than wind. Sandor could only trace its fast flight by the scarlet tail feathers, a blood red flash in the slowly greying sky as their night's flight came to an end.

They'd heard hooves behind them for most of the way, but as the sky lightened and the rain became visible across the mud filled fields to their sides, the pounding of galloping horses behind them quietened. Sandor could not believe that they could have outridden the Harrenhal men. Keeping to the huffing mare's pace had made them easy pickings, and he had expected to be making a stand before the night was through. Perhaps they had given up on them. But he didn't entirely believe that. They'd killed three of their men. And she'd taken down one of them herself…

The bird swerved suddenly from its straight path and Sandor pulled on Stranger's bridle, earning a shake of the horse's head and a fierce huffing from him. But the horse obeyed, veering to the right and onto the remains of a gravel path, almost entirely reclaimed by wild grass. Stumps of a fence poked through the ground like rotten teeth, and finally, at the end of the forgotten path, there was a large barn. It had mostly fallen into dis-repair and large parts of the roof had caved in. But as he dismounted with a pained grunt, Sandor saw a section towards the back where some of it still remained. He helped Mouse down, noting his shivering and how wet his clothes were.

"Come on lad. We'll rest here." They followed the large bird of prey into the barn, and moved through some of it where the rain still pounded on their heads, before getting to a dusty and cobwebbed nook full of mouldering straw. Sandor knelt, holding his side, and scrapped together some straw, considering it.

"This'll smoke like a bugger and signal for miles around. We can't light a fire here." Mouse was starting to strip his clothes and looked so bedraggled and pathetic that Sandor sighed deeply. "But we'll have a fire, of sorts."

He cleared a space of straw and concentrated, calling it, just like as she said. A flag stone there began to glow with a sullen red, before becoming as red as her tail feathers. He had to concentrate to keep it warming up, but once he released the power the stone continued to burn red and emit heat. It wasn't much, but it would warm them a little.

He lay back on the straw, exhaustion almost claiming him. His eyes drifted a little as he fought sleep, and something caught them. A large timber, one of the ones still trying to support the remains of the roof, had something carved into it at shoulder height. At first he dismissed it as the mark of some local lovers, no doubt made in earnest just before one of them was sent off to fight for the Riverlands in this fucking war. But the initials weren't laid out like that. There was a B, and then another B over locked with the first's curves. And then across the two of them was a W, black to the B's redness. He felt like it should mean something to him, but the tiredness was in his bones and his wits, and he couldn't make sense of the three letters.

He must have dozed, though he didn't remember the pain stopping and letting the sleep take him. But when he woke she was kneeling by his side, tearing at her skirts. He grabbed her hand quickly, without thinking.

"I have to replace your bandage with something more… real." There was a coldness in her voice, steel even. He looked carefully at her face as she worked, binding him. Sometimes he read her wrong, sometimes he couldn't see the humour in her pouting, or the seriousness in her anger. But this looked serious.

"What's wrong, girl?"

She paused, and he saw her decided to take this path. "You pushed me aside."

He remembered then. She'd killed the man, broke his neck… been set on killing the other two as well. And then he'd been able to change, even with the Stranger breathing down his neck he'd finally been able to call the fire.

"I am your sworn sword. I am the blade, not you."

"I could have killed them. With this power…"

"I am the blade!" He sat up a little, looking around for Mouse. The boy had curled into a ball in the straw, just like his namesake and seemed to be fast asleep.

"They wanted to rape me! They nearly _killed_ you!"

"No! No! _You_ don't do _that!_ "

He suddenly fell backwards into the straw as the full force of her sending hit him. This was not a pleasant daydream sent to him while he slept, this was a memory forced into him.

Sandor found himself in the corridors of the Red Keep, watching from the shadows as a large man with a grim and ruined face towered over a small frightened girl and barked words at her.

_"Killing is the sweetest thing there is!"_

She'd only thanked him, thanked him gently for saving her from rapers and murderers. And he'd terrified her like that… the memory of it had been bad enough, but seeing himself at a distance. Why the fuck had she even decided to come with him the night of the battle of Blackwater Bay?!

And then, as though she had heard him, the scene shifted, and he found himself standing with other lords and ladies of the court as Ser Meryn fucking Trant stripped her and beat her before the throne. Some were laughing, some were smiling, but none dared show visible disproval of their King. But he had, hadn't he? Covered her over in that fucking Kingsguard cloak, wanting to protect her.

But this time it was different. The Hound standing by the King moved forward to cloak the girl, but as he did the smoke emerged from beneath the white cloth and struck out at Trant, at the King, at all those laughing faces.

"No!" he screamed hoarsely. But the dream King was dead, his face purple after the breath had been crushed from his throat. The Sansa in front of the throne stood, dropping his cloak and forming another from the smoke. Her face was that frozen mask of ivory again.

"If I'd had this power then… you wouldn't have needed to protect me." Her quiet voice came from his side and he looked down at the real Sansa who was sending this dream.

"This is not what you are!"

"Perhaps it is what I must become…" She looked up at him with those eyes he loved, turned a fierce and sharp blue in her anger. "When we go North, do you plan to stop me from having my revenge? They killed my family, Sandor. Even Rickon who was the same age as Mouse!"

"I am your blade Sansa. I'm the man who does the killing so you keep your fucking hands clean!"

"Was that ever fair? Was it ever right that Joffrey treated you like his dog and sent you out to hunt and kill?"

"It was what it was. You are something else. Something better." He pulled her to him. "And maybe I'm also something better now. Because I serve you and not him." Her lips were unyielding at first, but he poured his feelings for her into the kiss and she began to respond. And the throne room faded into smoke, replaced by his bright sending to her. The gardens of the keep on a hot Summer's day. He watched her looked to where he had brought them and see a young red haired girl walking by the vivid flowers for the first time with her septa, chatting and smiling as she shared her first impressions of King's Landing with the older, calmer woman.

And there, some ways back, was a large man in battered armour, nodding short courtesies to passing knights and ladies, but following the girl and the septa at a cautious distance.

Then he woke them both, taking them away from the sunlight of the Southron lands to the rains of the Riverlands and the draughty relic of a barn.

"There are other sweet things, little bird."

"They put her head on a spike." She said with the steel still there, and rage in her eyes. "On a spike, next to my father's… and Joffrey made me look."

When the smoke came for her, she was still the black and red bird of prey.


	18. Chapter 18

SANSA

Sansa spent the day hunting.

She wondered if it felt like this for the dog? The rush of blood in her veins as her keen eyes spotted the small creature on the ground so very far below. The scream of the wind through her sharp feathers as she plunged to take the kill. The end of the small furry thing's life in her claws. It was… glorious.

Falconry had never been a popular pastime at Winterfell. The men preferred using hardy, obedient dogs rather than fragile birds tossed about by northern winds. And the women preferred staying within the warmed walls of the castle, embroidering and gossiping in cosy circles together. She had preferred to stay there. Safe and warm, making pretty little things for a pretty little life. Sheets with flowers on them for a marriage bed. A frilled nightdress. Silk small clothes.

What did the bird want with any of that nonsense?

If she told him about this, about the thrill of it, he would probably glower again and make some comment about the blood on her hands. Blood on her claws. They were sharp, cruelly curved and magnificent. She felt sharp and magnificent.

Curving back towards the barn she dropped another offering for them, letting it fall through a hole in the roof. Sandor was practical enough to be roasting what she brought them, even if it meant using the power he loathed. He'd campaigned, he knew well enough to eat when there was food. Mouse… Mouse would probably squeal at the messiness of it, but he'd lived on the streets and also knew he had to eat. And Sansa… she'd… she'd….

The bird flapped its wings in distress, before settling again to the rhythm of flight. She was Sansa. She was Sansa. She was the girl who'd pull a face at the blood and gore. She was Sansa who had never made a campfire before, or skinned a rabbit, or touched a man… No, she was the girl who'd learnt all of those things. He'd taught her all of those things. He could teach her more if she let him. The bird didn't understand that, but Sansa did. Sansa Stark, Lady of Winterfell.

Her sharp eyes searched the horizon. Their night time charge away from the riders of Harrenhal had turned her all around, and she was no longer sure of their direction. But the silver lines of the Trident guided her eyes back to where she expected Riverrun to be. They'd headed further north than they'd planned, almost to the Red Fork itself. But Riverrun was still there to the West, its triangular shape plunging into the waters and splitting them around itself. She wanted to feel comfort from its closeness, comfort from knowing that there was family there who would take her in and take the burden of making decisions from her. But the bird saw only an intrusion on her horizon, some human thing breaking up the wild skies that she claimed with wings and claws.

Movement caught her eyes again, down there on the waterlogged green of the Riverlands. Claws stretched, readying themselves to claim a target, but this was the movement of man. It was stealthy, sticking to an overgrown copse of trees and its shadows. But the bird's eyes made out the small party of men, their weapons, and their man made forest green garb that wasn't ever going to the right colour to the bird's eyes. And she saw the direction of their travel.

There was time yet, and they might still pass by the ruined barn. But the bird turned on the wing and flew back to her companions as quickly as she could. The large warrior, the little squire and the girl…

***

"Bloody well fetch my armour!" Sandor was standing unsteadily, but trying not to show the weakness in his limbs by using his voice as a cudgel against the boy.

"But… but ser…" Mouse's eyes were wide and he looked back and forth between the Hound and Sansa, who stood as a woman now, her arms folded as she considered the warrior, anger turning her blues eyes to the colour of a storm.

"You heard him. Get his armour. And when he falls to his back like an upturned turtle then we'll both have to help him up!"

Sandor growled at her reproachfully.

"What are you trying to prove, exactly?!" Sansa walked towards him, shouting into his face inches from her own. "You aren't fully healed, and in a few moments your change will be upon you anyway!"

"Men are coming girl!"

"Let them come!" She knitted her brows as fiercely as his. "I can defend us!"

"No!"

It was cruel, and she wasn't sure he'd forgive her for it, but Sansa moved quickly and shoved him. He fell back to the straw behind him, the breath pushing from his lungs in his surprise. She stood over him, watching as his face became thunderous. But he didn't lash out at her.

"I am just one girl Sandor! I counted five men coming! With weapons. You know you can't do this. But your pride is making you foolish!"

She thought he might explode. And then she saw him calm himself intentionally, breathing deeper to still that rage that he carried with him all the time. When his change took him moments after, the fire twisting him so painfully, she was surprised that the dog was still calm even after that. He sat on his haunches and let her inspect his wound. It was near fully healed, the change erasing some of the damage it seemed.

"What… what will we do when they come?" Mouse seemed almost to be trembling.

"We shall see what they want with us. And if they try to hurt you or Sandor, I will deal with them." There was coldness in her voice, the coldness of the black and red bird, and part of her celebrated it. She was sharp and she was magnificent.

When they did come, Sansa and Mouse were sitting on the straw, eating the cooked remains of a stoat, Sandor's false fire cooled back to grey. She saw the dark shapes moving in the far side of the barn by the slight light of the moon. She stood, brushing straw from her skirts and trying to straighten their creases. The dog sat by her heels, watching as the five men went from jovial companionship to cautious steps as they saw the girl, the boy and the dog.

One of them, a mostly bald man wearing dull red robes and ill matching armour, hailed them, staying back within the darker shadows.

"The night is dark…"

"Yes. Yes it is." Sansa found his greeting curious, but she put on a pleasant tone.

"Ah…" The man seemed to nod to himself. "Do not be afraid, girl."

"I am not." Smoke twisted between the fingers of her left hand, kept to her side, and just out of view.

"We are defenders of the smallfolk. Do you have need our aid, girl?"

"We are well, thank you."

"Perhaps we can share a fire and tales of our travels." One of the other men went to move forward and the red robed one halted him. "If that is agreeable?"

"We have no fire. Nor the means to set one…"

"Easily remedied." He came forward, followed after by the other rag tag men. One of them carried a bow and Sansa gestured towards it as the dog began to growl.

"Leave that back there a ways…"

The red robed one gestured to his man, who tutted, but did as told.

Sansa took her seat again as they set the fire with wood brought from a pack, lighting up the darkness of the barn.

"A fire is welcome, is it not?" The red one looked at her as the fire caught. "It scares away the dark. I am Thoros. Of Myr… now of this brotherhood."

Sansa smiled a little at him. He seemed harmless enough, and she let the hidden smoke dissipate, joining the first tendrils coming from the fire. Mouse rubbed his hands and held them out to the flames, and she noted how much closer to the fire the dog was now willing to sit.

"Jeyne… Jeyne Hill."

"Hill?" The light from the fire grew, casting their shadows back from them. "And yet, so far from the Westerlands…?"

His eyes widened suddenly then, and Sansa instinctively called the smoke to her again.

"No… no!" Thoros was paling. "You can't be!"

He stood quickly, and the others got to their feet as well.

"I saw you once. At the Tourney of the Hand. And I would never forget that hair, blessed by R'hllor himself! Sansa… Lady Sansa, daughter of Lord Eddard Stark!"

He fell to one knee, holding a fist to his chest, and moments after the other men followed his example.

"No… no please don't!" Sansa panicked. What did this mean?!

Thoros looked up at her again, the excitement on his face clear to her.

"She's been waiting for you! All this time! And _we_ found you!"

***

"And the fifth time Ser Dondarrion died, it was due to an arrow from the bow of a Brave Companion…"

Sansa took a deep breath and tried very hard not to scream at the red robed priest.

"Arya! _Arya_ was here…" The robed man had mentioned it almost as a second thought, a thing of passing interest, but then he'd gone on this boring recitation of Beric Dondarrion's deaths and resurrections. Sansa had accepted his account of Beric's first rebirth without comment, after all, she knew more about magic now than she ever thought she would. And wasn't the dog now walking by her side as they followed the brotherhood back to their camp? He'd been near to death and the power had him loping by her side again. But he was also picking up on her impatience, and twice now she'd had to lay a calming hand on his head.

"You have to listen to my story, girl."

"You have no right to tell me what to do!"

Thoros paused for a moment. "Beric's tale is important…"

"Not as important as my bloody sister!"

He stopped entirely. "Such language from a lady! You have been on the road too long… And with such strange companions… R'hllor bless you!"

He looked down at the dog and Mouse. In the depths of the night they walked through he seemed not to have noticed the dog's scars. Sansa fretted about what might happen if they were still with the brotherhood when Sandor's change came. She wanted to subtly question the man on his opinions of the King and the Lannisters, but Arya's fate was more immediately important to her.

"Tell me of Arya… _please._ "

"There is not much to tell, truly. We found her and some equally ragged travelling companions. We did think that they would stay with us, especially the blacksmith's apprentice, he had some use… but she stole him away with her one night…"

"A blacksmith's apprentice…?! Where were they going?!"

"I cannot say, truly. I pray that she did not get caught up in the… wedding."

Sansa frowned. Would Arya have headed to the Twins? Or would she have made for Riverrun? Perhaps she was even there now! Besieged… but with the Blackfish!

The image of Arya, near feral, running through the woods with a blacksmith's boy came to her then, and she almost laughed at the parallels of their journeys from King's Landing. When Thoros spoke again she was amazed anew that two sisters, so dissimilar it seemed, had travelled such similar paths.

"Ser Dondarrion even knighted the bloody fool. From a blacksmith's boy to a knight, and still the boy went with the girl. Maybe he thought he were her match with his new title… Knight of the Hollow Hill… pfft!" Thoros looked cross. "And of course, that was before Beric died for the sixth time, at the hands of a Harrenhal man…"

"Was he a good man?"

"Of course! R'hllor would not have brought him back so many times if not…"

Sansa bit down on her anger. "No. I meant the blacksmith's apprentice?!"

"Gendry? I suppose so. We're all sinners in the end though…"

Sansa fell quiet then, letting Thoros finish his account of Beric's deaths, not really listening as thoughts of Arya broiled in her mind. She was alive. She was alive! And she might even be safe. Perhaps this apprentice would care for her as Sandor had done…

"We're nearly there, girl. And soon you'll understand why I had to tell you the story Beric's resurrections. Soon you'll see R'hllor's might." He peered down at her in the dark. "Though… though, something tells me you know a little about the power of the gods."

Sansa looked back up at him defiantly.

"You could not have survived so long had they not been with you in some way… Although, all are but paler parts of R'hllor's glory…"

The party came to a halt at Thoros' gesture.

"We'll leave you here. She often walks here by night. Your boy and the dog can come with us to rest and be fed…."

Sansa looked around at the ancient trees. Weirwoods. How long had it been since she'd been in a godswood? How long since she'd paid her father's gods service? Thinking on that she turned to Thoros and commanded him, putting the Stark steel into her voice.

"My companions will stay with me. Whoever it is you wish me to meet with… they remain at my side."

Thoros paused and then bowed slightly. "As you wish… my lady."

The brothers wended their way through the trees and into the deeper darkness, seeming to disappear into the murk.

Alone, and in the dark, Sansa became increasingly aware of the shifting of the trees in the slight winds of the night. It sounded like a sorrowful song of sorts. She shivered and knelt by the dog, resting arms about him to share in his warmth. Mouse looked to her, the word trembling out of his mouth.

"M… M… Mother…"

She drew him closer and the three of them huddled in the dark.

Then she heard the crack of a breaking twig and the dog stood, suddenly on guard. Sansa stood as well, drawing Mouse behind her, and calling the smoke. It swept from her, filling the spaces between the trees, caressing their smooth white bark and rolling up to the moonlit sky.

Sansa looked about, reading herself to fight if necessary as Sandor growled low, and deep, a rumbling sound in its large chest.

Then she saw it. A shape, stood between two weirwood trees. A woman's shape, clouded by smoke and the darkness.

"Are you the one they want me to meet?" She tried to bring the Stark steel into her voice again, but fear dulled its edge.

A strange gurgling sound came in response, and Mouse whimpered behind her.

"I am not afraid!" Sansa roared into the smoke, and it swirled angrily in response.

"I have been beaten, and I have been cursed, and I have travelled hundreds of miles! I have killed a man! And I am Sansa Stark! And I am not afraid!"

The woman moved. There was something… unnatural about her movements. As though a stiffness filled her limbs. Sansa watched through the smoke as the woman raised an arm up, seeming to place her hand across her throat.

"Sansa."

Her name was a guttural croak, barely understandable. But Sansa reacted as though punched in the stomach, crying out in pure pain as she knew the truth of who waited for her in the weirwood, who had waited in the dark for her for so long.

"M… M… Mother?!" She stuttered.

With a wave of her hand Sansa pushed the smoke away, revealing the figure between the trees. She wore a long grey, hooded cloak, her face partially in the shadows still. But Sansa saw the scratch marks on her bone white face, the red weeping wound at her throat, the pale and brittle hair that had once been auburn like her own. Sansa sobbed and her mother held her hand to her throat again, pulling together the ripped and ruined skin.

"Sansa." Her voice was stronger then, but still broken and harsh.

Mouse was burying his head into Sansa's skirts, and she turned slightly to comfort him.

"Boy." Her mother croaked. "Who is he?"

Sansa looked up at her again, smiling slightly as she pulled Mouse to her side and to her mother's sight.

"This is Harlon… Harlon Stark. My son." He sniffed a little and fearfully looked up at his… grandmother.

Her mother frowned, a dark and terrible look on her ragged face, and Sansa quickly moved to explain.

"We found him…"

"Joffrey's…" She was struggling to speak through her wound.

"No!" Sansa shook her head. "No, mother. Joffrey and I never… wed. And Mouse… Harlon, is too old to be his anyway!" An awkward laugh fell from her lips at the misunderstanding.

"Joffrey's!" Her mother shrieked and the sound was horrible, a song of anger born from her cracked and ragged lips.

"No!" Sansa frowned. "No, he's not Joffrey's!"

"Joffrey's… _dog!_ " her mother spat the final word out and screamed at them.

Sansa looked to Sandor, panic on her face. He was backing away, the fur on his back raised as the woman in the cloak moved closer.

"No! No! You don't understand!" Sansa moved between the two of them. "He savedme!"

"Hound! Hound!" She was retching the word out like vomit while stalking towards him with her other hand outstretched, her black and cracked nails reaching for him.

"No!"

Sansa screamed as she saw behind her mother for the first time. She saw shapes, two of them, hanging from a weirwood tree, the moonlight outlining their young faces and their sigils. Frey men… boys really. Freys hung from a tree in the godswood!

"Oh gods, oh gods… No!" She gestured and the smoke flew at her mother, pushing her back. Her mother… this creature… was stronger than the man of Harrenhal, and all she could do for a moment was hold her at bay.

"He is…" Sansa struggled to speak as she sent the smoke out. "He is mine!" She pushed out at it, and the creature fell back, hissing at her.

Sansa staggered, sobbing. Mouse was there, holding on to her as she struggled to regain her breath. And then he was there too, helping her to stand as well, naked in the smoke, but defiant as the creature circled them and croaked curses in its broken voice.

"Your daughter is safe! She is safe!" Sandor shouted at her, rage building, and sparks flying from his skin. "She has my vow and she has my sword!"

"Dog! Lannister dog!" the creature scratched at the air as though to get to him through the smoke.

"No longer! I serve her! I am hers!" He looked at Sansa as he spoke the final words, and Sansa felt a strange smile on her lips. That she could smile at such a time!

The creature shrieked again, a final time, and then turned, moving quickly into the darkness, smoke and the ragged ends of her cloak following after.

He pulled Sansa to his bare chest, and she closed her eyes, knowing that from now she would see that face of fury in the darkness whenever she thought of her mother. And she wept.

***

SANDOR

He held her tight against him, letting the sadness subside and the shaking end. He cursed himself for the thought… but he was still naked.

"Mouse. Fetch my clothes from the packs." Mouse was still, completely frozen by his fear. "Do it boy!" He didn't want to sound cross, but his sharp tone might be familiar enough to break the spell the child was under. It stirred Sansa too, and she wiped tears from her cheeks. But she remained wrapped in his arms, the softness of the cloth of her dress against his skin. He fought his body's urges, cursing himself that it could be beginning to happen at this time of all times…

Mouse returned with his breeches, a tunic and boots. "Should I bring your armour?"

Sansa pulled from him, closing her eyes to avoid seeing him. Was it her bloody manners, or was it still maiden's fear? She did not shy from him when they'd laid, body against body in the Quiet Isle. Nor when she had moved over him in just a shift… Gods, he should not think of that now either!

He dressed quickly. "Aye. And bring my sword. I want to have a few words with the religious fanatic…"

"We should just go." Her voice was so quiet, and her eyes were red. She was so pale in the greying light. Fuck leaving, he wanted to teach Thoros a lesson or two!

"He should have told you what you truly faced!"

"Do you think that would have prepared me?!" She was still shaking he noticed. "Lannister's dog she called you… and there were Freys in that tree. What do you think the brotherhood will do to you?!"

Sandor knelt as Mouse helped him with the buckles of his mismatched armour.

"Three times bloody Thoros of Myr bested me in the melees. Three times. Fucking flames running down his sword. Said it was the might of his red bastard god. It was fucking wildfire!" He gripped the hilt of his greatsword and the metal began to glow. "The man likes tricks. Tricked you, made you scared. Tricked me…" He paused, not admitting the next thought. "It's beyond time I show him some real fire!"

The blade caught fire, the flames curling down its length and lighting the Hound's scarred face and the twisted smile there.

***

It did not go… exactly… as he'd thought it would.

He'd imagined Thoros curled into a ball, wetting his breeches and begging for mercy. The others would have fallen to fear like their priest, and he and the bird could be on their way without the fucking Brotherhood without Banners on their backs.

Her change had come on their way to the cave that the remains of the dog in him had found by the scent of man and campfire. He'd thought she'd still be the black and red bird of the Stranger. But it was the small red songbird that joined him on his shoulder. That only served to make him more convinced to bring fear to the red priest's life. Have him cowering while they took their leave, and keep the smaller bird safe. It was a simple plan.

But then he didn't cower.

As soon as Sandor's firey blade announced his arrival through the mouth of the cave the shaved headed man was on his knees jabbering and moaning in some other tongue. Myrish maybe. The others followed his lead and Sandor looked from one to another in disbelief. They weren't attacking, but they didn't seem scared either. They looked… ecstatic. Words repeated, were picked up and spread around the brotherhood.

"Azor Ahai! Azor Ahai!"

"What is this fucking shit?!"

Mouse peered around his legs and boggled at the rows of kneeling brigands. He looked up at Sandor and shrugged.

He becalmed the flames on the sword, letting it cool from ruby red to dull steel again. Thoros slowly, cautiously, raised himself.

"I never thought… I never thought. I beat you four times in the melees!"

"It was only three fucking times!"

Thoros bowed subserviently and whispered in awe. "Sandor Clegane. The Hound… Azor Ahai! I never thought!"

"That better not be some curse in your fucking tongue, Thoros!" Sandor was confused. The man had been a diffident priest at the court of King Robert at best. He'd seemed more keen on wine than preaching. More happy wielding his bloody fake flame sword than wittering on about R'hllor.

"There is a prophecy…"

"Oh fuck that!" Sandor growled. "We've got enough gods babblings and powers. But we don't have food and drink!"

Thoros himself busied himself in finding the warrior and the boy a soft place to sit in the large hollow, bringing them hams, bread, cheeses, wine for him, and milk for the boy. The bird ate bread from his fingertips.

"Where… if it pleases you… might I ask where the Lady Sansa is?"

Sandor considered Thoros, his mouth stuffed full of bread. He chewed, making him wait. "She's around." Thoros's eyes flicked to the bird on the Hound's shoulder and frowned a little.

"Are you… are you…?" He stumbled over something and Sandor felt his impatience grow.

"Spit it out you old fool!"

"Is she wed?"

Sandor gave him a dark look, and Mouse giggled suddenly before a darker look from Sandor shut him up.

"She is unwed! Though what the fuck is it to you..?!"

Thoros moved closer and Sandor bristled. "It's just that… in the prophecy…"

"I don't want to hear it!"

Thoros was persistent though. "I could wed you two together. Here, by the weirwoods of the old faith of her people! In the eyes of R'hllor!"

"And the Seven!" Exclaimed Mouse, smiling. Thoros ignored him.

"Religious fools!" Sandor spat, shock at the idea clear on his face. It had been months since they'd discussed her future wedding, back when they'd still assumed her brother would make her a match. They'd not… he hadn't… they didn't lie together as man and woman because he hated the idea of rushing her through that first time, the change giving them such little time together… Or was it that she still saved that for a husband who'd bring her the North? When was the last time they'd talked of it instead of just acting on the heat she made in him? Furious thoughts ran through his head, and the eager looks on Thoros and Mouse's faces weren't improving his humour. And the bird was strangely quiet…

"No."

His word was flat, unarguable. Mouse shrugged but Thoros looked more seriously disappointed. What the fuck was it to him! Was he calling them sinners behind those shifty eyes? Fuck him. He didn't know what it was between them, but it wasn't fucking sin! He bit down angrily into his bread, remembering to pass her some more, cursing both meddling priests and excitable children as he did.

***

The burning red of sunset leaked into the cave and Sandor took to his feet to look for the girl outside. He batted Thoros' simpering and arse licking away, and growled deeply at him.

"Care for the boy, I got business outside!"

The priest had barely left him alone since they'd come here, blathering on about his red god whenever an opening presented itself. The bird had long since flown out of the hollow hill, perhaps escaping the Myrish shave head's echoing words, or to seek out her mother again… He hoped that it was not the latter.

But he had words of his own he would have with her. Words already echoing around his own head and giving him as much of a headache as Thoros' fucking bleating! There were things he would say to her, and things he would have her say!

A while away from the cave he came across her footprints in the wet grass, starting in mid-step as she had returned from the smoke, and then continuing off between the trees. She had been looking for her mother, he was sure of it. But he found her, following the path of her steps, standing alone under the arms of a tall weirwood tree, gently touching its white bark. Seeing her, golden red in the dying sunlight, the words on his lips died in his mouth. And when she turned and smiled her sweet smile at him, he decided they weren't such important words anyways. Why not steal these moments here, now and let tomorrow be tomorrow?

But seven times damn him if he didn't blurt them out anyway!

"The priest would see us wed."

She had just begun to raise hands to reach for his, and she stopped, letting them fall back to her sides.

"And you said no." She breathed.

Her words were soft, and he couldn't read whether there was sadness in them or relief, but her response threw him back, killing the sharp words he'd had readied. He'd said no. He'd remembered that the bird hadn't made a sound, and then he'd fallen into a mess of thoughts about her… and them. But he'd skipped over the firm no he'd given the priest and the boy. Because… because that 'no' was for them and their scheming, not for her!

He watched her hands come together on her lap, the fingers twisting there. Her eyes were looking down at the floor. Seven fucking hells! Didn't she _know?!_

But his mouth wouldn't open.

She must know! All those sweet sendings on the ship… the captured moments on the Quiet Isle… coming for her the night of the battle in King's Landing! She must know!

Hadn't he barked loud enough when thoughts of her debt to her family and her brother's campaign had been raised? Hadn't he mocked the Highgarden lordling enough? Hadn't he shown her through his touchings and his kisses?

But he hadn't said. He had never said. And she might well believe he thought of her as some mere plaything… gods damn him, she knew he'd been with whores… it may be that she thought this meant as little to him as that! But he'd sworn her vows! Vows he'd never sworn for any other, not for the bloody knights, nor the King himself! He was hers. He was hers!

"It does not… I do not need…" She was stuggling to speak, keeping her eyes downcast, those long delicate fingers still clasping each other.

Was she… his?

"You need to wed a Northern lord, girl… or the Highgarden cripple. The boy doesn't understand the bloody world as we do. And the priest has his own special fucking madness!" He resorted to hard words, and coldness. It was safer.

Her eyes raised to him, and the steel was there again, a matching coldness in her eyes, but she was silent.

"Once this curse is conquered, we'll go North. Your… your moonblood will come again, and you'll wed." It seemed simple when he said it like that, one step after another, like her footprints on the wet grass. But his chest hurt.

"No!" Her voice was firm. Unarguable. "I don't want to win the North with what's between my legs! If that's what it will take, I no longer… fucking… want it!"

He was shocked at her language. Not the cursing, but the talk of what lay between her legs. But wasn't that how he'd said it to her, ages back in the inn on the road towards Oldtown? When he'd first kissed her?

"Little bird…" He wanted to tell her, and he started the only way he knew how. Mocking her… caring for her…

"Don't! Don't you dare! Don't you dare make me think that you could… and then just…!" There was a rage there he'd seen before, the rage that could call the smoke. But it wasn't coming, it was just her and him, and she was mad at him. Why couldn't he just say it?! Why couldn't he-

"I am yours!" She near shouted the words out, her hands now at her side in fists. "And I don't care if the North will not follow you. I don't care if we spend the rest of our days on the road. Or if we are cursed! I am yours!"

She stepped forward quickly and reached up for him, tears at the corner of her eyes as her fingertips pulled his face to hers.

Her lips were soft on his, hesitant, and then he took the lead and danced her through a stronger kiss, showing her even if he could not tell her. Didn't she know!

"You are mine." He whispered the words between their lips. "You are mine!" She paused and moved away, a small smiled starting to turn the corners of those gods sent lips. Her hands found his, and his hands enclosed her fingers gently, as he had done the bird so many times. He almost thought he could feel her heartbeat there in his palm as he did the bird's.

"Forgive me Sansa… please. I'm no good with pretty words. I'm like to never tell you sweet things about your beauty. I'll never make up some horse's crap about this curse keeping you to the night because the sun is jealous of your light, or some such shit." He managed a wry smile. "But… but I love you. And I would wed you. That's all I can say."

She nodded, her soul breaking blue eyes capturing his and keeping them focussed on her.

"And I would wed you also… for I love you also." She was shy as she spoke, blushing a little, and it spun him off into the sky. Damned fool he was!

"Should I call the priest then, and make his fucking day?" Sandor tried to make things light again, but his heart was in his throat. Was this it? Were they going to wed here, now?

"No." Her voice was gentle, so different to the firmness of her no just moments before.

Gods damn it, the fire was starting in his back!

"Not here, not now." She looked concerned, noticing his pained expression. "Not among these defiled woods. Not by a red priest of a god I do not know…"

He collapsed to his knees, and she knelt in the mud to help him with his tunic. Her fingers were cool on his firey skin, tracing lines across his chest as she pulled it over his head. He managed his breeches by himself, thank the gods, but he noticed that she did not look away from him as she had always done before. Aye, she was his.

"Not here, not now. Not when you must leave me, or I must go away." His body twisted and he groaned, and tears sprang to her eyes again. "Not when we must part." His hand was reaching for hers, turning and twisting into the dog's paw before they could touch.

Then she knelt and held the exhausted dog as he panted, sides slick with sweat and mud.

"But… I am yours."

***

SANSA

She hunted sleep but could not capture it.

The hollow was oddly cosy, if you ignored the snoring Brotherhood and the strange creaking of weirwood trees outside in the night's winds. The floor was covered over in soft loam, and a large crackling fire was set in a dip in the centre. And even if its heat wasn't on her, the dog lying next to her ran warm enough for all three of them. Mouse was curled up, long asleep, oblivious as ever to any change in his bed for the night. He seemed equally comfortable on a wooded floor as a cave in a wood. But Sansa had put her head to a bundled cloak hours ago, and still she could not drift away.

Returning from the woods, Thoros had greeted her with questions and curious looks. A man had gone out after the bird, and a woman and a dog had returned. She'd used their usual story about the Hound wanting his privacy, and added honey to it by saying that Sandor had wanted to think on all that the red priest had said of R'hllor. That seemed to please him, although it was not enough to satisfy his need to preach to her as well… she'd feigned tiredness to get away from him and settle down with the dog and the boy, but now she wondered if that lie was getting its wicked revenge on her and stealing sleep.

But it wasn't small lies keeping her awake. Nor even memories of the creature that had been her mother… all she felt on that now was a hollow ache.

No, thoughts of her… betrothal… kept her from sleep.

She remembered being sleepless with excitement when she'd been promised to Joffrey. She remembered it, and mocked herself for it now. She'd lain there, in the soft beds of Winterfell, and fought back bursts of excitement as she'd imagined the dress, the ceremony, the envious looks of the lesser ladies as she walked beside her new husband as Queen… gods, she had been pathetic! How could she not have noticed the monster she was pledged to? How had it taken so long to awaken to that nightmare? She knew why… it was because in all those imaginings, Joffrey was an incidental figure. Groom shaped, or husband shaped, but blurred as though seen through a smoked glass.

Thoughts of her betrothal to Sandor kept her from sleep. But not of the dress… nor the ceremony… nor the bloody looks of others, as if that had ever really mattered! No. It was thoughts of him that made sleep impossible. His words as the sun was setting, of how he would wed her. His words on other occasions. His kisses and his touches. The agony of the shortness of the time that they had together…

She would wed him at once… If they could but stand together as man and woman, without one of them dashing to some dusty and forgotten room to surrender to their change, as he had done on the Quiet Isle. She smiled a little as she remembered that day, when she had claimed Mouse… Harlon… as her son. Walking up the aisle of the humble sept and seeing him waiting there… She'd had to concentrate on hiding her blushes, her thoughts of a wedding… and a bedding… breaking out to shine hotly on her cheeks!

Gods! She had to sleep! She'd informed Thoros of their plans to aim for Riverrun, and he'd reluctantly agreed to have the Brotherhood escort them as far as they could, setting off tomorrow morning. He called her fool for walking straight into the siege, tried to convince her to stay under their protection. But she could not. Not least because the Brotherhood marched to the drum of the creature in the woods now. Lady Stoneheart they called her. And Sansa had forced away tears when she'd first heard her mother so described.

She turned over, screwed her eyes shut, and forced herself to clear her mind. Something made a strange muffled noise in front of her face and she quickly opened them again. The dog had turned his head towards her and was looking at her with his deep, sad eyes. Sometimes she forgot that the dog was the man. Sometimes her hands ruffled his good ear without thinking if the man would mind. But now, with his wrinkled face inches from her own, she saw the man reflected in the dog's eyes.

"Sorry. Did I wake you?" She whispered, curling closer to him.

He huffed his odd dog laugh, and then his long rough tongue slobbered over her cheek before she had a chance to move away. She stifled a shriek and a giggle, wiping away the saliva with the cuff of her dress.

And then suddenly she was dreaming, the hollow drifting away and a new image forming before her eyes as his sending took her.

The Great Sept of Baelor. Pealing bells heralded her approach to the altar, along with the gasps of thousands of lords, ladies and fat merchant princes. Her dress was perfect, silks and satins in greys and whites, and her hair elegantly styled. And her groom… he was dressed in fine clothes, some outfit she'd seen somewhere else… on Loras perhaps? His hair was combed, his face clean… his face! He'd erased his scars!

She shook her head, throwing down the flowers in her hands and covering everything over with the smoke as she raised her arms and sent it forth. It swirled about and reformed his dream to her own. Not the Great Sept in the centre of the city that had become her nightmare. Not the thousands of people she'd never known, or cared to know. Not the man he'd presented her with.

The small wooden sept on the Quiet Isle. Elder Brother standing with him and Mouse at the altar. Her steps taking her to him, to the man with the dented armour and the scarred face who she wanted, not the version he thought she might desire more. There were figures watching. Some were solid, of flesh, good men and women they'd met on their journey. Iveia, Willas, Cara, Donal, Bartelmew, Bruth, Riveriil, Mezzi, Ifan. And others were of the smoke, ghost like remembrances of those she'd lost. Her father, her mother… as she had been… Arya, Robb, Bran, Rickon.

She reached the altar and smiled up at him.

"Do you see?" She asked sweetly. She reached up and gently touched his face, tracing the lines and creases of the scars there. "It is you that I want."

His eyes seemed to moisten, and he nodded curtly, swallowing hard. Then Elder Brother began his words. They sounded strange, warped and unclear, as though heard from underwater.

"Sorry lass. I do not know what they say." He smiled ruefully.

"I think they say what we have already said to each other. That I am yours. That you are mine."

"I am yours. And you are mine." He smiled. "Isn't there a bit with a cloak as well?"

Fire roared into life over his back and flowed down to the ground. Smoke flowed over her shoulders in response, making a cloak of her own, before she cast it to one side and it slipped away into nothingness. Then he was sweeping the fiery cloak over her, drawing her into his protection. As it settled it became the patchwork cloak, no longer worn and mud stained, but as she had first made it for him. She drew it around herself, looking up at him with a question in her eyes.

"I'd not have you wear the bloody dogs." He frowned. "Not the three dogs the Lannisters gave my house."

She smiled and then reformed the cloak herself, the silks and the threads looping together as though by an invisible needle. A blue, a light sky blue. One dog running, grey like his eyes and alike to her former house's colours. And above him, flying in the same direction, the little red bird, wing feathers spread wide. Free.

He kissed her then, the kiss of a man greeting his wife for the very first time. And the sweetest of dreams became the deepest of sleep, until morning came and their changes were upon them again.

***

CERSEI

The knock came at her door in the deepest depths of the night. But she wasn't asleep. She rarely slept until the grey of dawn now. She'd sit up and drink until the wine pulled her into unconsciousness. And even then, sometimes she still dreamt.

Shaking, she walked slowly to the door. Only he came here at this hour. The man with the plain face, her confessor, Ektor.

He smiled his false smile and came in without waiting for her leave to do so. The shaking was getting worse, but she managed to pour them both a drink.

"Have you… have you come up with a solution to my problem?"

Ektor took a seat by the hearth and sipped on his wine.

"What problem was that, my Queen?"

Her wine glass fell to the floor, red wine staining a woven silk rug.

"What problem?!" She shrieked.

She steadied herself under his blank stare. Those eyes. Sometimes she dreamt of those eyes…

"The nightmares!" She sat down quickly on the other chair, cradling her head in her hands and breathing deeply to steady herself.

"Ah yes. Those." Ektor drank deeply and considered her over the glass. "There may some herbs… to bring about a deeper sleep…" he sounded uninterested and she felt her rage building.

"Every night they come! Every gods damned night!" She was a mess, she knew it, her famous golden hair unpinned and trailing over her face. Black bags hung under her eyes. Her nails were cut to the quick by nervous nibbling teeth. He had to help her! He had to!

"I will do what I can, your Grace."

"You fucking said that last time!"

Another knock came at the door. Whereas Ektor's was always distinct and certain, this was the rapid and light knock of someone who did not believe that they had the right to enter the chambers.

"Come!" She hated how her voice quailed.

A young man entered, in his eighteenth or nineteenth year perhaps. But it was not his youth she immediately noticed, but the plainness of his face. He could have been Ektor's son, if the Septon himself did not appear to be of an indeterminate age. Plain faced men. There were more and more of them about the keep… perhaps it should bother her. But then, she was so often distracted these days, with one wedding just passed and another, grander even, to come. How could she possibly know all of the faces of court with that to deal with?

"What is it at this hour?!" She was shaking again, and she drank in the hopes of settling her hands.

"A message for the Lord Confessor your Grace."

Lord Confessor! When had that happened? Had she signed some document… or had Joffrey… she found it hard to remember.

The man passed over a slip of parchment to Ektor who read it quickly, before throwing it to the flames. "He is here?! Bring him in immediately!"

The man nodded, bowed and left quickly.

"Am I to have more nocturnal guests?" She had intended the words to be hard and demanding, but they emerged wane and pleading. What had happened to her…?

"Just one more."

The door opened again and an immense dark shape ducked through it.

"Clegane!" the name came out of her lips as a near squeak. And then her eyes went wide as Ektor moved rapidly, crossing the space between the chairs to grasp her wrist. Something… something fled from her, and a haze descended, a fog that felt almost alike to those moments before the dreamless sleep of her wine cups claimed her.

She saw Ektor move back, twisting a small stone between his finger and thumb. It was a small bone white thing, but shot through with veins of pure gold.

"This I think will be necessary…"

She forced her head to slowly turn to face the giant, and her dulled mind registered him as still standing by the door.

"Gregor. Gregor Clegane. Shut the door."

The giant moved slowly and pushed over the heavy wooden door.

"Kai left you with commands. Good. Good." Ektor looked pleased. "Tell me of them."

Gregor still stood, straight of back, arms left hanging at his sides.

"Take the pouch to the Red Keep. Give it to Ektor. Do as he says. Eat whatever he gives you."

"The pouch then."

Cersei tried desperately to concentrate her wits, but the room remained in a haze as the Mountain moved to Ektor and passed him a small pouch. The Septon shook out several stones onto the palm of his hand and considered them.

"Rapers. Cutthroats. A sorry bunch. And no gem. So Kai died unexpectedly? Answer me."

"Arrow. On the banks of the Bay of Crabs. It flew through my brother's woman as she became…" Gregor's face, a block of stone till now, struggled with difficult thoughts. Cersei realised the heaviness of her features then, the stillness of the muscles. She was stone also. And her thoughts moving as slowly as the rocks themselves.

"She became smoke." The Mountain finished his thought and his face resumed its solidness.

"Ah. I see. That is… regrettable."

He picked out one stone, slightly larger than the others, and held it up to the giant.

"Gregor. Eat this stone."

He took it without question and popped it into his maw, swallowing it whole. His features began to shift again then, anger quickly replacing his blank look. Ektor went to grab the man's large wrist, but he batted him away, and leapt back quickly with his warrior's reflexes at work again.

"You'll not fucking do that to me again!"

Ektor raised his hands in a gesture of surrender, smiling that false smile.

Gregor's eyes narrowed as he considered the Septon. "You'll tell me everything. Or I'll snap your neck."

"No. No I won't". Ektor steepled his fingers. "I'll tell you what you need to know to get what you want."

Gregor looked confused.

"What do you want? Money? Lands? Women? I can get it all for you… and all you have to do is serve me. And you're good at serving, aren't you?"

The Mountain looked furious but he didn't disagree.

"So tell me… what do you want?"

The Mountain considered Ektor. And then his eyes roamed over her. Gods… gods… she called out in her mind to the gods she'd never much cared for… but even her mind's voice was slow and slurred.

"Sons."

"You surprise me. I did think it would be gold. Do you want your brother's woman? When we're done with her she'll make a very biddable wife for you."

"The little red haired bitch? Saw her at a tourney. Small. Frail. Let her birth weak bastards for my brother… so I can drown them. No. I've had wives. Three of'em. And I've had women… lots of them."

He moved so that he stood behind Cersei's chair.

"I want this one. I want a Lannister who I can bend over and fill with strong boys."

Cersei screamed inside, but it was a hollow, muted sound.

"They'll be bastards, of course." Ektor said flatly.

"I'll take'em when they're birthed and have a wet nurse give them the teat. If they're strong enough, I'll claim them when they're men."

Her scream was tearing her mind apart, fogged as it was.

"The thing with the stones… can it make her want it?"

"Truly want it? No. But she can be made to give the appearance of it…"

"What's the difference?!" Gregor laughed darkly.

Ektor smiled and stood.

"I believe we have an understanding. I will leave you now. Both of you.

He looked to her. Cersei's mouth almost began to shape a word, as she fought tooth and claw against whatever power she was under. _No!_

He clasped the white and gold stone and spoke…

"Desire him."

Two words and her body betrayed her, going to him even as her mind fled from what was happening.

Ektor left them.


	19. Chapter 19

SANSA

Towards the edge of the horizon there was a haze of brown and green, an undulating line of trees, and in that wood they were waiting for her. The large, reluctant, knight would be sitting on a fallen tree, watching with a practiced eye as Mouse bounded around, flailing at invisible enemies with his shortsword. He'd bark a couple of words about his stance, his erratic swings, or mocking the way the boy complained about the weight of the steel. But Mouse would be improving… slowly. Somewhere in that wood the two of them were gathering firewood together, because Sandor still didn't trust the boy to do it alone again after Tarth. Somewhere in that wood they'd be settling down to eat some of the food the Brotherhood had left behind with them after reluctantly escorting them so perilously close to the siege. Mouse would be prodding Sandor to tell him stories of his campaigns, so he could steal the details for his own tales of the Patchwork Knight.

Somewhere among those trees… on past the chaos and noise of followers' camp, on past the regimented lines of the three thousand or so men of House Frey and House Lannister, on past the wooden giants aimed at the high walls of Riverrun… somewhere among those trees her son… and her husband… were waiting for her.

She'd promised Sandor just to scout the castle for possible ways in for them all. The small red bird could fly over the camps and the trebuchets with ease. Her red feathers might cause mention if she was spotted, but she wasn't the black of a raven. Dead black bodies lay all over the fields, pierced right through with arrows. The archers were obviously deadly shots and had kept eyes readied for bird messengers.

But then she'd reached Riverrun and her scouting had found this window and its ledge and she'd stopped there for a while. On the other side of the slightly open bubbled and pitted glass, was a sizeable and well furnished room with a roaring hearth and a large table covered over with parchments and maps. A Lord's study, she was certain. And if she waited here, wouldn't she see the man who was her great-uncle, now Lord of Riverrun?

All she knew of him was that he had fallen out with her grandfather and then taken the name and sigil of a blackfish. What kind of man was Brynden Tully? Of her grandfather she even knew little, never even visiting Riverrun before this day. Looking out over the siege, she thought that the Blackfish was at least defiant, and in that she found something to admire. But what would he make though of the sudden arrival of a great niece? Not to mention a man who becomes a dog by night, and an orphan boy now named Stark?!

The day's shadows were lengthening as finally a man entered the study. His hair was turned all over to grey, but there were blue eyes amidst his lined and weathered face. He looked tired and worn out by cares. She watched cautiously as he took a seat at the large table, and moved papers around without much obvious intent. He rubbed his face and leant back in the creaking chair, staring into the hearth, frowning darkly.

A time passed, and the room darkened. Sansa had considered for a moment revealing herself to her great uncle, and gambling on the Tully name that bound them to ensure his aid. But she held back, a caution gained on the road prickling her. And then the sound of a gentle knock at the door to his study disturbed the man and the bird alike.

"Come." His voice was hoarse, unfamiliar to her ears.

The door opened and a girl entered, smiling at the older man as she did. She was pretty, with gently curling brown hair and warm brown eyes that looked to Sansa's great uncle without a servant's deference. Her clothes were plain, dark greys and blacks, but in good cloth. Sansa assumed she was younger than her, but when she spoke she did with an authority of someone used to be listened to by the older man, and then she seemed much older to her.

"Uncle… Am I disturbing you?" Sansa's feathers ruffled at the term. What did she mean by 'uncle'?

"You never could Jeyne. Come, sit." She took another seat near him and sat neatly there.

"My mother has some requests…."

"Of course she does. Don't let us speak on your mother's 'requests' just yet. Are you well?"

"Well enough." She smiled wanely. "The infirmary we have set up in the stables is keeping me busy."

"I am sure your mother is pleased by your diligence." There was sarcasm in his voice.

"Oh uncle!"

"If she had her way you'd be sitting prettily embroidering flowers all day, and being no use to no man…"

"Be nice."

"Can't see why."

"She would like larger rations for our household."

"We would all like larger rations Jeyne. She has to be realistic. This siege may continue for months…"

"I am merely passing her words. I do not necessarily agree with her."

"But she asks you to come nonetheless. Does she think I will bend the knee to you as my Queen, or because of your sweet face?"

The girl sighed, but Sansa's mind was whirling. Jeyne… Jeyne Westerling?! Her poor brother's wife?!

"As to the latter, I cannot say. But the former… all that is done with, is it not?" Deep sadness filled her voice. "Or at least, that is what my mother says."

"Your mother can go hang."

"Perhaps we all will, one day." There was a forlorn darkness in the girl that Sansa recognised. Jeyne stood to go. "Forgive me, I will stay longer another day. But the infirmary…"

"Go. Work and be useful. Perhaps your mother will learn from your example!" He stood and hugged her gruffly before she left.

Sansa's mind was aflame with thoughts. But one thing she knew for certain was that Brynden Tully was a man she could trust, a practical man of loyalties. She knew she should fly back to Sandor and Mouse. She knew she had promised him this morning, during their all too brief embraces by the hollow hill, that she'd only scout for them and then return. But the urge to speak with this man who had her blood and knew her mother when she was young was so strong.

So she waited, caught between promises and hopes. And the day drew to a close, the man slumping slightly at his studying of maps, before slipping into a slight doze. When her change began, Sansa let the smoke drift into the darkened room, and the woman appeared, wreathed in grey clouds, in the seat that Jeyne had left hours before.

Eventually Brynden stirred, his eyebrows furrowing as he reacted to her patient presence. Slowly those Tully eyes opened and caught sight of her sitting there in the dark.

"Cat?" He stretched. "I dreamt of you, niece…" Then he started as he realised it was not his brother's daughter who sat before him in plain travelling dress.

"Who are you?!"

Sansa took a deep breath. "This might be hard to understand…"

"Do not come into my rooms, in my castle, and patronise me, girl! How did you get in here?" He peered at her through the shadows of the study. "You look familiar…"

"I am Sansa Stark."

He paused, laughter and disbelief dying on his lips.

"Aye… you have the look of Cat about you. But Sansa Stark is in King's Landing. Full of belly with her half-husband's child!"

Sansa frowned, she had not known that. It mattered not, she supposed. Although… part of her saw herself in her double's shoes. Would she have had to marry Tyrion Lannister if she had not left with the Hound? Would she now be carrying his child? Or would some other fate have befallen her?

"I am here… great-uncle. I found help from… strange quarters… and made my escape from the keep many, many months ago."

He stood quickly and moved closer to her, and she surrendered to his inspection of her. He rubbed his face as he considered her.

"How can this… how can this be?!"

She paused not knowing where to start her story, or how much to tell him for now.

"Sandor Clegane aided my escape from the Red Keep. I have travelled with him since."

"The Hound?! Fuck me!" He waved a hand. "Forgive me. But the Hound?! Joffrey's own dog?!"

"Sworn to me now. Sworn to me as heir to Winterfell." She considered telling him that they were wed… but could not. Yet. "He waits with… his squire… beyond the forces of the siege. I can get word to him, and he will join us here. If there is any secret way into the castle…"

"Invite the dog in? Not bloody likely!"

"Great-Uncle, he is sworn to me!"

"Child… you do not understand!"

"Now who is patronising who?" She stood, noting their differences in height, but putting steel in her voice. "I am Sansa Stark, heir to Winterfell! Heir to Robb Stark too at that, if you still kneel to the claim of the king in the north!"

"Jeyne is… was his Queen…!"

"Call her here then, I would meet with her also!"

He frowned. "You're your mother's daughter, Sansa!"

"Thank you." She curtsied a little and was rewarded by a deep laugh from the old warrior.

"If your dog must come in… there's a water gate on the northern face of the castle. Mostly below the riverline with the flooding of late. But its not safe for him to try to cross the lines. The Lannisters will not welcome his passage if what you say of him is true, and I would recommend you tell him to stay put. Though, how in the name of all the gods did you make it through to us?!"

"That great-uncle-"

"Call me uncle, that 'great' is too weighty for me!"

"That… uncle… is a long, long story."

"It seems that, while besieged, I have little else to do but listen. My lady."

He gestured to the chairs by the hearth, and they sat once more. And Sansa began her tale of the curse.

***

MOUSE

His head turned from left to right, to left again. And then to right. And then to left. Watching the large knight pacing was giving him an ache in his neck. But he would not dare suggest that he stop! As long as he was pushing his worn boots through mounds of wet brown and red leaves, he wasn't snapping at him for imagined mistakes. Already the Patchwork Knight had barked at him over the setting of the campfire, the way he'd tended to Stranger and Ser Brave… even the way he'd been breathing as he worked. The knight was as taught as a bow string, and Mouse knew why. She still wasn't back.

As he sat cross legged on a slimy tree stump Mouse found that small quiet place inside himself. He made himself known to the Seven, praying under his breath to all of them, one by one by name, that they would bring her back soon and make him stop his awful pacing.

"And you can bloody well stop that too!"

Mouse paused and looked up at the knight through his damp brown hair. "Ser?"

The knight growled and threw himself down on another tree stump nearby, hunching over as he stared into the distance, eyes focussing through the treeline towards the camps of soldiers which were starting to glow a dull red in the greying light. "Praying all the bloody time! Waste of good breath."

"Our lady doesn't think so…"

"Aye. That's true." He seemed caught up in thoughts for a moment. "Gods see everything don't they boy? Do they see things when no one else is around? Do they see the things said between two people when no one else is there…?"

"Of course!"

"And dreams, do they see dreams?"

"I believe so…" Mouse wasn't so certain on that one. But it sounded right to him. He hoped the gods had seen his dreams and that was why they had sent his new mother to him.

"Good. Then they saw it all. Gods first, then men…" He frowned again. "Where the fuck is she?!" He got up and began to walk again. "Maybe… maybe I should try and get through the lines."

Mouse took a breath to answer, but paused.

"You don't think I should. Is that it?"

"There's lions out there, ser. Our lady said."

"True enough. Lions. And men from the Twins. Thousands of them between us and the castle. Between us and her if she's there." He squinted up at the sky, judging the lowering sun for a moment. "But the dog could make it. Sneak past the men. Just another dog amongst hundreds of scavengers that follow an army."

Mouse stood suddenly. "You can't leave me behind!"

"Boy…" There was caution in the man's voice, but Mouse had never much been one for heeding that tone. Osric knew that well enough.

"You can't just leave me here with the horses! What if men come?! I'm better with the sword than I was, but…"

"Hush. I'm thinking." The man rubbed his hand over the thick growth of beard on his face, and then on up to the twisting skin on that one side, fingers following the lines of it. His scars had never much bothered Mouse. Osric'd had smooth skin and been ever more terrifying in his mind…

"We'll take them with us as far as the followers' camp. You can use my coin to have them stabled. Some cunt might try and take'em, but Stranger's not like to allow that. Ser Brave'll probably go meek as a lamb, but Stranger won't let'em…" He moved around their small camp with a sudden purpose, gathering together strewn belongings and packing them away.

"Then the dog'll get through the lines and… hells. We don't even know how to get into the castle! What the fuck am I talking about?!" He sat down again.

"Where is she!" He scanned the trees and the pale blue grey sky between them. And then he was up and on his feet again, moving his feet as much as he could without actually going to her.

Mouse sighed and took up his prayers again.

***

Even when his change came the man barely paused in his nervous walking. He ripped his armour from himself as he moved, dropping it piece by piece for his scurrying squire to collect, fearful as he was of loud accusations of letting them go to rust on the ground. The knight even walked as he flung off his clothes into Mouse's waiting arms, before falling to the mud and mulch of the floor of the wood, his body taking the strange shapes of his change as he bellowed in agony. But then, once the dog was over the pain, or so it seemed, he was straight away onto his paws and pacing again, the energy within him not worn out by the remaking of him.

So when the dog stopped suddenly and fell to his belly Mouse jumped from his awkward sharpening of the knight's greatsword to see what was the matter. He was surprised to find him snuffling and snoring, his nose against his paws as he lay on the leaves. He was used to the dog's sleeping by now and it was usually full of sudden movements as though the dog was having bad dreams. Sometimes he even woke with teeth bared. But this was a calm sleep, the lines of the dog's face easing as he breathed deeply. It reminded Mouse of the calmness their lady made in the man…

But then he was awake again, leaping to his feet and barking at the boy, before rearing up and placing his paws on his shoulders, his hot dog breath in his face.

"I don't… I don't understand! I'm sorry!" The dog gave a wheezing sigh and fell down to all fours, before grasping the end of Mouse's grey and red surcoat in his jaws and giving it a gentle pull.

"You want me to follow?" One bark for yes, just as the dog did with his mother.

"Is it time to go find her, then?" Another single bark.

"Finally!"

He quickly ran around collecting the last of their belongings and stowing them away in packs on Stranger and Ser Brave. He debated with himself about tying his short sword onto Ser Brave's saddle, but slid it into his leather belt instead. The dog chased his heels as he folded up their bedrolls, and jumped and barked as he staggered and fell bringing the greatsword to Stranger's side, near climbing him in his impatience as Mouse carefully slid it through the saddle ties.

"I'm going as fast as I can!" He untied the horses' bridles and pulled at them gently. Ser Brave trotted quickly. Stranger gave him a little resistance, but most like because he wanted the squire to know that he was choosing to come, rather than being made to come. He was like that.

The dog led the way as they worked their way through the close set trees, bounding over bushes and loping ahead before turning back with an impatient look on his face. How a dog could look impatient Mouse did not know, but then this was not just a dog…

Finally they emerged from the tree line. Not far off was the outskirts of the followers' camp, a mess of hastily erected tents of various sizes, materials and colours lit in the night by freestanding burning brands and campfires. It was as though some great wind had picked them up and dumped them willy-nilly, thought Mouse. Or perhaps the hand of some great god… the Father most like. But that wasn't right. The Father was about justice, and what Mouse knew of this siege from accidentally overhearing the Patchwork Knight and their lady, it did not seem just. No, perhaps it was that other one who had brought them all here. The Stranger…

But it was easy enough to walk into the followers' camp in the darkness, the Mouse, the dog and the two horses simply following one of the dirt tracks, still busy even at night. They were joined by carts bringing vegetables, wine jars, chickens… even one with three women on the back of it, waving and calling to the trudging farmers and traders as they walked through the turned over mud of the paths into the camp. Mouse wondered why women would be coming here, bundled up in cloaks, sitting on the back of carts like turnips… perhaps they came to do the washing for the soldiers of the main camp?

They reached the camp proper and it was even more of a mess than it had appeared from the outside. Even at night ragged children still ran about through the mud, watched with one eye by women holding babes on their hips. A blacksmith sang to the Smith as he worked late to beat horseshoes into shape. A line of men wearing either Lions or the towers of the Twins pushed and jostled each other as they waited at a red and white striped tent under the flickering fires. Perhaps that was where the washerwomen were… A crowd watched as two shirtless men grappled with each other, one with a nose already smeared across his face. Mouse was reminded of Osric's main source of coin, the fighting ring, and he wasn't surprised to see the crowd exchanging coin as the fight went against the man with a good nose and he fell to the rain soaked ground.

The dog tugged again at his surcoat, and Mouse looked at what had caught his eye. A pen of horses, and a bored looking man standing in front of it, near a wooden post. On the post was painted a red horseshoe with a peaked line of red over it as a roof. Mouse stood straighter and walked the horses towards him. The man looked down at him and laughed a little, and then straightaway demanded more coin than the Patchwork Knight had said he would need. However, that price dramatically dropped when the dog bared his teeth, shining white in the darkness.

Mouse kept looking back at the horses as he and the dog walked away down the main walk of the followers' camp. But then the mismatched tents became fewer and fewer, and the spaces between them filled with grass rather than many times over churned up mud. Then there was a strip of land between the followers' camp and the soldiers' camp proper. In the darkness it was oddly calm compared to the mess and noise behind them, and Mouse even saw a quick footed fox stalking along its length, ignoring the guards who were occasionally looking out over the still land.

Mouse knelt beside the dog and whispered into his good ear. "What should we do? How do we get over there?!"

The dog did not respond, of course, but suddenly lowered himself, starting to crawl on his belly towards the main camp. Mouse followed after, getting on his hands and knees in the wet grass. Soon the chill of it was running all the way through him, but they made the edge of the camp and curled up by a tent post, with Mouse trying to rub feeling back into his mud slicked hands.

Now they were in the siege proper, surrounded by men in clanking armour who were set to keep an eye out for intruders and string them up by their insides… or something like that. The dog was keen to move on, fidgeting as Mouse peered into the darkness, looking out for wandering swords. Suddenly the beast darted forward, and it was only Mouse's quick reflexes that saved him from barrelling into the man who emerged from the shadows. Mouse grabbed at his tail and yanked him back with all his strength, falling back as he did so. The dog turned quickly, teeth bared and towering over the boy on the ground, but he calmed quickly, even with his red anger at being stopped so roughly.

"Wait!" Mouse hissed. "We have to be careful!"

Careful. Careful and wise, thought Mouse. He slowed his rapid breathing as best he could, and closed his eyes tightly. The Crone. The Crone was wise, and she lit the way for men with her lamp. Mouse imagined her. Her crooked back. Her wispy grey hair. The lines on her face, which could either be fearsome, or the lines of a thousand smiles over many a year. Her lamp, golden metal around a flame. He saw her, leading them step by step through the camp and the battle lines, and safe out the other side, to the castle where his mother waited for them. The lamp would swing and bob ahead of them, a light to light their way…

And when he opened his eyes, the light was still there, a ball of many colours like the flashes he saw when he looked at the inside of his eyelids. And it was bobbing and moving away from them…

"Quick. We have to follow!" He stood quickly, ignoring the dog's snapping at his surcoat. If they just followed the Crone's light then they would be safe, he knew it. The dog whined a little, staying back and giving two low muffled barks… but eventually he followed after him with quick paws.

Three times they nearly encountered patrolling men, and all three times the path of the Crone's light took them behind obstacles just in time that they did not discover them. A weapons rack. A cart. A set of stocks with dead men inside. Mouse's heart was in his mouth the entire way, but he trusted that the light would not guide them wrong. Finally it brought them through the silent wooden giants, the trebuchet the knight had called them, and down to the raging river's edge. And not a single one of the near three thousand soldiers had seen them.

The ball of light rolled into the water and vanished. Mouse sighed, and tried to prepare himself for the coldness. The dog slunk into the water quickly and swam against the torrent, but Mouse paused, crouching on the bank and considering the water.

"I should probably have said… I don't think I can swim. I'm not entirely certain, as I haven't tried it ever before…"

The dog was on him in but a moment, his jaws pulling him into the water by his sleeve, and then grabbing him by his shirt to drag him through the water as he swallowed most of the Trident, coughing and spluttering in shock. He tried to move his arms and legs as he had seen others doing it, but in the cold they seized up and flailed about, and the dog had to do all of the work. He was incredibly strong, and the boy stopped trying to help, as he seemed to be getting in the way more often than not. Then they were at the base of the castle, the dog swimming against the river, looking desperately for something. Finally Mouse spotted the tops of metal bars emerging from the water at the bottom of the thick white walls.

"There! There!" He swallowed more water as he shouted but the dog pulled them both to the bars and Mouse clung to them against the flow of the river. Suddenly the dog dipped below the waterline, returning a moment later to growl and bark over and over. Dog curses, Mouse thought suddenly, laughing a little even as the strength was starting to leave his frozen arms. Then the dog went down into the blackness again. Time passed painfully slowly, and Mouse started his prayers again…

And then there was a red light below him. Oh very well, if he was hell bound even after all his praying, then there was little point in struggling. Even the water around him was warming up from the fires of the Seven Hells. Well, at least he was going to die in warmth. He offered final prayers to each of the Seven… all of them, one by one by name.

Then he shrieked as something pulled him under the water, before dragging his body up and onto a set of rough stone steps leading upwards. He emerged from the water and lay across them, gasping for air. Looking up he saw a hell hound standing over him, the waters of the Trident hissing off of it as steam as fire ran down its flanks. Mouse looked back down the steps and at the gate. What remained of it that is. Red and molten metal was still dripping down from the remaining parts of the bars and falling into the water where it spat and cooled.

"Good dog!" He laughed as the dog shook water from his fur, and then Mouse coughed and spluttered as the last of the Trident left his lungs. He staggered up the steps to follow the dog as he bounded upwards, watching as it stopped occasionally to sniff the air.

"Can you find her? You did it in Saltshore when that mage had her…?"

The dog barked once, the sound echoing back to him in the narrow stone staircase as he ran upwards after him. And then they were bursting through a wooden door… had it been locked? Mouse wasn't certain, but it had not seemed to stop the dog… and then racing through corridor after corridor as he hunted her down.

The dog stopped suddenly at one door, several flights of stairs up from the water gate, and sat down on his haunches. Mouse caught up with him and skidded to a halt on his sodden boots. He quickly ran fingers through his drenched hair, and straightened his surcoat, the one she'd made him, before raising his fist to the door to knock politely.

She opened the door cautiously, but smiled widely as she saw the dog and the boy standing outside her door, dripping all over the flagstones. She'd bathed, and had her hair combed and tied in a loose braid, and when he hugged her she smelt of the best kind of flowers. And she did not care that he got her new cotton nightdress all muddy and wet, nor that the dog printed it all over with his paws, or that he licked her face.

She listened closely to his story of their crossing of the lines as she rubbed them both over with towels, and as she set out his clothes to dry in front of the hearth. She even nodded as he told her of the Crone's light, even if the dog had huffed as though laughing at the thought of it. And then she had a maid bring them a chicken to share, and she giggled as the dog crunched the bones loudly, making him do it louder still.

And when Mouse couldn't keep his eyes open anymore she pushed him towards the bed, and the three of them curled up there as they had always done. And he thanked the gods, all of them, one by one by name.

***

SANDOR

"Mouse… Mouse? Wake up, please." Her voice stirred the dog from sound sleep, but almost immediately he moved to sit up on his haunches, looking about quickly for threats in the grey light of her chambers. There was a groan from the curled up boy beside him, and he saw Sansa leaning over him on his side of the bed, gently shaking his shoulder. The boy looked up blearily through the mop of his hair, and rubbed at his eyes.

"My lady?"

"Can you find the maid who waited on us last night? Ask her to take you to the kitchens to fetch us something to break our fast? And we need some men's clothes… a tunic, breeches, boots… all as large as she can find? Please, Mouse."

"Of course… mother." The dog watched the boy as he rolled from the bed, still a loose limbed mess, before he hopped about, eyes half closed, putting on his dried clothes and pulling the surcoat over his head last of all. Then Mouse reached up on tiptoes to kiss her cheek, and ran from the door, his boyish energy returning to him even after all the sneaking and near drowning of the night before.

She smiled as he left, and turned then to attend to the dead fire in the hearth, building it up with small pieces of wood from a basket nearby, and attempting, and failing, to light the tinder. The dog watched her shadowy form moving about in her long nightdress, and sent the fire to catch on the small logs she placed there. The fire leapt into life and she turned back to him, a sweet smile on her lips.

"Thank you… my lord."

Her courtesies were pleasing to him, he had to bloody well admit that. They always had been, whatever he might have said to her…. But now they were not as pleasing to him as the silhouette of her form; the fire of the hearth behind her cast through her cotton nightdress and made its conservative length redundant. He could even make out the greater whiteness of her smallclothes through the material. So he shivered as his eyes cast over the line of her waist and her hips, and then the shiver became the fire within him and he leapt down from the bed to the chill flagstones of the room to let the change take him. He was certain that he felt her hand on his shoulder at one point, but it was over easier and quicker than it had been in the wood just the day before. Just her presence seemed to make it less painful.

When he finally looked up, as a man, he saw her on the other side of the large feather bed, standing. Waiting. He noted the stains of mud on her nightdress now that it wasn't being lit from behind, and he also saw the large paw prints of the dog marking it. She slipped into the bed, and under the coverlet, her eyes not leaving him.

He was naked. And still she watched him. Did it please her, what she saw? He was taller than most men, broader too. His body hair was dark and there was plenty of it. In King's Landing he had thought that she favoured bloody Loras Tyrell, the dandy… and he was a far smaller man than him, and hairless… intentionally so. Sandor's scars were more numerous than Tyrell's as well, silvery pink raised lines marking out where he'd been careless. The newest, the long cut from nipple to near groin from his fucking brother, and the small round wound from the arrow, had healed fast, but still scarred him. Was he a beast compared to the flower? And his face… well, she'd either long ago got over the fear of that, or it had never much bothered her.

And then there was his manhood. She'd averted her eyes so many times before after his change, that maiden's fear showing clearly in her blushes. But now he watched her looking, trying to judge if it pleased her as much as her silhouette in the firelight had pleased him…

It wasn't a thing he'd given much thought to before… some men were proud of what they had, some were ashamed. But it functioned as he wished, and that had seemed enough. The only women to ever see it, or comment on it, had gasped and fluttered about it. Then, for coin, they'd done whatever he wanted them to do to it, all the while seeming happier to pay it better attention than his face. And perhaps they gasped for all their walking coin purses…

However, Sansa had never shied from kissing him, scarred as he was. Would she then not shy away from this other part of him?

He saw her smile slightly, meeting his eyes now.

"Husband." The word was whispered, as though she was trying out the sound of it. But then she slipped beneath the sheets, and raised them for him on his side. "Join me?"

He moved quickly, and it took all of his restraint not to carry on his movement to lie over her and claim her as his wife in truth. Perhaps… perhaps she even wanted that. Her eyes were on him as he lay beside her, and when he placed a gentle hand on her belly, covering over one of those large muddy paw marks, the lids of them lowered as though in pleasure. He moved over the softness her, running his rough hand over the thin cotton to feel the dip of her navel and the edge of her ribs below the roundness of her breasts.

He could try to be gentle. He could treat her better than the whores he'd fucked without concern for their enjoyment of the act. He could kiss her and warm her, and move slowly… but there would never be time enough. He'd heard that there could be pain and blood for a maiden. If that was all she knew of this before the smoke took her through her change, what would she think of lying with him then?

"Sandor…"

He looked up from the path of his hand to her eyes.

"Now… now that I have the right of it… I would take my time with you" She near whispered the words, but there was a hesitant smile spreading on her lips. She was teasing him and he laughed darkly to hear his words twisted back at him. But she was right, and he kissed her gently to show her so, enjoying the softness of her lips and the give and take of it. Then a thought occurred.

"Sansa?"

"Hmmm?" She was lying in his arms, eyes near closed, sweetly peaceful.

"Did you ever… did you take the advice of the bastard-girl in Salt Shore?"

Her eyes flickered open, and that maddening flush of red raced across her cheeks.

"Did you ever seek your own pleasure?"

She burrowed down into his arms, hiding her face, and he had to gently extract her and hold her arms to make her look at him, the question still on his face.

"I… I did not. There was never enough privacy on the road."

He knew that well enough. Between the bird and the mouse there were eyes around him most times. It had near driven him mad, their playfulness in the cottage with no way for him to seek his release. Private moments had been few and far between even there.

"Perhaps the boy and the dog should have their own quarters while we are here…" He suggested, keeping his tone light even while his mind raced at thoughts of his little bird making herself sing.

"But you must know… you must know of these things?!"

"You may not want to hear it, but I don't know that I've ever been with a woman who did not play the mummer for me." She looked confused, and he forced himself to continue. "They were pretending to enjoy it, little bird." He sighed. "So I would know… I would know how you find your pleasure, so that I can seek it for you as well, girl."

Her mouth opened as though she sought to reply, but she paused. And then he felt her small hand on his, pushing it carefully down the length of her belly and towards the join of her legs, hidden over by cotton. She curled her fingers around his and together they held her there, neither moving.

"Is it like this?" She whispered through deeper breaths and he nodded, his body reeling with even this simple touch.

"Perhaps… perhaps we can learn together?" Sansa looked up at him with wide blue eyes.

But then the smoke was coming again, falling over them like silken sheets and taking her away from him.

However, he was glad that he had not rushed her through a claiming of her. Not least because touching her, _with_ her, had pleased him more than he had ever known before.

***

Gods, the man was fucking boring!

Sometime after the bird had taken the girl's place, Mouse had returned with his clothes, and a maid in tow who waited outside as he'd dressed in the chamber, before bobbing and nervously stammering out something about an invite to break his fast with the Lord of Riverrun. He'd wanted to shut the door on her, and take his food with the boy, but Sansa might want him to… be courtly… with her family. What little remained of it. Though that would probably only make her more enthusiastic that he break bread with the man. Gods!

And then he'd turned up to the man's study, alone as Mouse had skittered off with the bird on his shoulder, and he'd been treated to a long and boring account of the castle's siege preparations. What the fuck did he care how much salted beef they had put by? It sounded like not enough at that. And what did he want with the knowledge that they were running low of good steel and had started melting down some of the Tully's antique arms? The man had only hushed as the maids brought them meagre portions of ham, bread and cheese. Still though, it was better than some of the shit they'd had to feed upon on the road. He was seven times damned sick of rabbit again already.

The maid left, and Sandor was just ripping into a hunk of bread as the old grey hair spoke.

"Did you rape her?"

He angrily chewed the bread rather than spitting it out as he wished to, rage building with a fierce pressure behind his eyes.

"Oh she isn't scared of you. She talks of your vows to her. Of how you'll help her get Winterfell and the North back. So maybe you convinced her it weren't rape. Maybe you gave her those vows, and became her gallant fucking knight. But maybe you still swing your sword for the King. Whichever sword that is." The man watched him as he poured a red wine from what Sandor had assumed was a clay water jug. If he hadn't been about to tear the man's face from his skull, he might have admired his dedication to drinking.

"Fuck. The. King." Sandor emphasised each word, and the torches on the walls blazed suddenly. The Blackfish watched them, but did not comment on it.

"I'll drink to that." He supped, keeping his eyes on Sandor. He pushed a goblet towards him and filled it as he spoke.

"You're an angry man, Clegane. That's as much as I've heard of you. An angry man who has channelled that anger into killing for his masters. And you've been angry since I called for you this morning. Angry as I told you about our preparations to hold out against your lords. Angry as you ate the crumbs I gave you. But not so angry as when I asked if you'd raped her. That was a killing look in your eyes then, dog."

Sandor drank deeply, but stayed silent.

"So it maybe that I have the wrong end of it." He leant back, considering him with narrowed eyes. "Maybe it was my niece who was the sly one. Maybe she was the one with silver words, feeding them into that ruined ear of yours. Maybe she was the one who sang you a sweet song and got you to defend her, made you think you were good enough to have her one day. But first you had to keep her safe. All of her, even her maidenhead…"

He wanted to kill him. He wanted to let loose the beast and see his head caved in and that grey hair all turned to red. But thoughts pushed the rage away. The memory of her moving his hand this morning, making him touch her between her legs. The look in her eyes as she had called him into her bed. The word 'husband' on her lips… None of what he said was true. She wanted him, he knew that.

And he knew that she hadn't told him all of it. Once the thought that she was ashamed of him might have unleashed his rage and sent him to the bottle completely. But now… he paused and actually considered the wisdom of her choice. The Blackfish's words only showed Sandor that he couldn't be told of their wedding. Either, as he said, he'd believe that Sandor had forced her to it, perhaps so that the Hound could make a claim on the King's behalf… or he'd not recognise a wedding made of words before silent trees… a wedding made in dreams.

"Aye, I kept her safe. And she kept her maidenhead. Of course, every man with blood to hers thinks they can trade that away like its theirs to spend. Perhaps you're no fucking different Blackfish. So who'll it be? Some Riverlands boy? A Northern lad? Or maybe you'll end this siege by giving her back to the Lannisters and by having her open her legs to the Imp for real?"

It was the Tully's turn to have his fill of rage.

"Fuck the Lannisters!"

"And I'll drink to that."

The Blackfish looked him over. What did he see? The scars. The sword arm. The wine. The grim face. That was what they all saw, except her.

"Maybe… maybe I'm wrong. Perhaps you've found something on the road. Something so rare that in all the Seven Kingdoms, and in a thousand years of our history, I could only name one or two times of it."

"Aye, and what's that?"

"True love, you whoreson!" He laughed darkly and drank deeply.

Sandor raised his eyebrows in surprise. The man was not as he'd expected, as he'd shown himself to be at first. He'd thought him to be some older, male, version of the Lady Catelyn Stark. She had been all careful order and stiff backs. But this one… this one was a slippy fish, hard to hold down and make sense of. But maybe he could…

"True love? Fuck that!" Sandor toasted him again, and the Blackfish joined him, and smiled wryly.

"Fuck it, truly." The man seemed to become more serious again. "Had it once. But then they died." He paused, drank again. "And then my brother wanted me to marry some Redwyne woman. I refused."

"I wondered on the 'Blackfish' sigil…"

"Black goat, 'Blackfish'… better than three dogs fucking running away!"

Sandor paused, and then the two men laughed together.

"You want her though, don't you?" Sandor reeled from the twists of this conversation. Oh, the man was sly… cleverer than the rest of his fish family. Blackfish? Balls to that, the Tullys should have had him lead them all to begin with!

"A dog can want. Don't mean he's going to get."

"That's true enough. All men want something. Me… I wanted to stay out of the way of things. But that don't seem to be happening." He poured them both more red.

"I know of a water gate… it was rusted shut, but I fixed that for you."

"Run? Maybe one day. But not today." He leant forward suddenly, narrowing those wrinkled eyes at him. "Tell me true, Sandor Clegane. This curse. What are you going to do if it can't be broken?"

Sandor wondered what the man wanted to hear. Then decided it didn't matter. There was only one answer.

"Protect her."

"'Fuck true love.'" But this time the older man looked sad. He pulled himself together and put his own type of steel back into his voice. "She's in the courtyard with that boy and Jeyne. Go on, get, dog."

Sandor left the man in the study with his thoughts, and made his way to find her.

***

SANSA

Sansa watched. That was all that she could do.

From her perch on the wooden steps leading up to the battlements of the castle she could see much of what was happening in the courtyard. Over by the repurposed stables Mouse was trailing after Jeyne and her sister, Eleyna. He was either making himself useful or getting under their feet, Sansa was not certain. The sisters were themselves following after the tall, long haired maester, Simon. He wore no chain, but the grey robes and the authority with which he inspected the men in the makeshift infirmary made it clear that he had come from the Citadel once. He softly asked the former Queen in the North and her sister to prepare various different treatments, and they quickly deferred to him. When he moved away from them Eleyna watched him go with stars in her eyes. He was in his thirtieth year perhaps, and she was of a similar age with Sansa.

The bird ruffled her feathers and settled them again. She ached to join them. She could roll bandages with Eleyna, or mix the poultices with Jeyne, and all the while listen to them talk of life in the castle, or of their home. And then later the three of them could sit around the hearth with honeyed wine and share secrets. She could find out more about how her brother Robb had won the older girl. She could find out more about their love and the sadness the girl carried now… She could tease Eleyna for her interest in the maester. If she was not the bird she could, but the bird could do none of these things.

Men in Tully colours walked out then, moving into the courtyard and taking up a spaced formation as though familiar with it. A man-at-arms inspected their wooden breast plates and swords, and then they formed into pairings. From this distance their practice was like a strange dance of court, they moved so slowly, testing out particular attacks. She watched for a while and then grew bored. Until she saw him arrive in the courtyard and watch them also.

Sandor did not seem impressed. Also, as he walked around the perimeter of them… did he perhaps seem a little unsteady? He had just come from breaking his fast with her uncle. Surely they had not been drinking?!

He had made his way about to the man-at-arms and was standing by him with arms crossed. He was most likely making comment on the men's skill. Or lack of it.

Sansa took to wing to sweep down to his shoulder. If her claws bothered him through his borrowed tunic, he did not mention it, but continued his commentary.

"That one takes your sigil too seriously. He thinks he's fighting with a trout and not a sword."

The man-at-arms was fuming, but silent. Sansa thought maybe she smelt wine on Sandor's breath. She gave three quiet chirps, but he ignored them.

"Which might be well, for his bloody partner thinks to catch a shoal of fish the way he's sweeping out his shield. For fuck's sake man, what are you showing them?!"

Sansa dug her claws in to his shoulder, but he did not flinch.

"Gentle, little bird. And that one! He's got his guard down so low he's protecting the fucking dirt!"

"Ser… if you don't mind…" The man-at-arms was turning to move away.

"Aye I mind! Because I want you to thrash those lions and those Twins men! I want you to cut'em from gut to brain. And all I see is them falling about laughing at your attempt!"

He roared into the man's face, and when he was done, the man-at-arms turned to a sweating soldier and roared at him too.

"Get the ser some armour! Get him a fucking sword! We'll see what he can do with his sword instead of his tongue!"

Sansa watched the smile spread across the Hound's face. Gods, she saw how he wanted this! But apart from his work in the forge on the isle it was a long time since she'd seen him training, let alone fighting! Was he sharp enough?

He gently moved her off his shoulder and took her to a water barrel, setting her down on the edge of it. She saw Simon, Jeyne, Eleyna, and Mouse walking over, the boy jumping and scampering in his excitement as the two girls looked worried and fretted. Then Sansa noticed that the maester was carrying bandages… oh gods!

Mouse rushed to Sandor's side and helped him with the unfamiliar practice armour. And then someone handed him a sword. A steel sword!

He swung it a few times, experimenting with its balance and length. Then he held his arms out wide, swinging its point about. "Who's my bloody opponent?"

The man-at-arms smiled grimly and gathered up his own sword. Sandor smiled wider and they circled each other, surrounded by the men of Riverrun.

"Stop them!" Cried Eleyna to maester Simon, clasping at his hands. But the maester was silent, watching the two of them swing at each other.

Sansa watched the arc of Sandor's sword and wondered if he wasn't even drunker than she'd thought. His moves were far wilder than she was used to from him, and several times she thought that he had left himself obviously exposed. And if she was noticing…

The man-at-arms caught Sandor's upper arm with his blade, nicking a red line into it. The men cheered, but Sandor shrugged it off. And then he was sweeping back, getting under the man's guard and crashing the length of his blade against the same arm on him. He'd used the flat side of the steel, and although it jarred the man, it did not cut him. Oh gods, he's just making a bloody point, thought Sansa in surprise, the curse slipping out in her thoughts.

And she saw that she was right. After that first hit Sandor scored several more, all of them with the flat of the blade as he found his way through the defence of his opponent. The man was bruised and tiring, but Sandor was still eager, his earlier wild moves replaced with the focussed brutality he was known for. He was playing with the man…

And then the flat side made contact with the side of the man's head, and he went down onto his knees.

"He yields!" Shouted Simon, rushing in to the loose circle of men to look him over. The man's eyes were unfocussed, but he still struggled to get up and continue the bout.

Sandor threw down his sword in triumph and came to the water barrel to strip his practice armour and tunic and wash himself over.

"Three for danger, little bird? Bugger that!" He laughed and threw his tunic on again, ignoring the small tear and blood on the arm, and held out a hand for her. She hopped onto it and he moved her to his shoulder. "I would see you… alone… as the sun sets later."

She chirped but once.

Maester Simon came over then. "Our man-at-arms… Bodren… requests that you lead the men in their drills for the rest of the day. There will be ten groups in total."

She expected him to grunt and curse at the tall maester, but he smiled a wicked smile instead. He looked over to where Bodren, sat on the floor, holding his head.

"Aye. I'll sharpen your steel for you."

So the day passed, with him roaring at men who then cursed at him behind his back. But Sansa was certain that by the time the shadows lengthened that they had improved. Some even exchanged curses for a grudging respect for the scarred warrior with the small red bird on his shoulder. And he seemed more content than she had seen him for a long while. Except when he was with her, that is, and his words echoed through her all the day long.

"I would see you… alone… as the sun sets later."

***

She heard the steady rhythm of his steps coming towards her down the long corridor, and she felt a thrill run through her. So many times in the Keep the man had moved quietly, appearing where she had not expected him, seeming to loom over her suddenly from shadows. Now, she thought, perhaps he wanted her to know he was approaching. The bird perched on the wooden foot of the bed where she had been keeping one eye on the large wood and iron door, and one eye on the falling sun out of her windows. Red light streamed into the room, casting long shadows, and soon her time would be on her. Not soon enough, she thought…

The man entered the room, casting his eyes about for her, before sitting down on the bed and rolling aching shoulders.

"Ten groups. Five hundred men."

Smoke wrapped about him at first, and then it was her who wrapped about him, leaning against the broadness of his back and shyly running hands over his shoulders to feel the muscles and ease their tensions.

"How many outside of the castle?"

"Around six times that much, girl."

"So they can't possibly win?"

"Win?! No… no of course not! Even if they dented the forces outside, there'd be more on their way from King's Landing in a trice. They're buggered, and that's the truth of it."

"Then why help? Why train them?"

He turned and quickly pulled her across his lap. "I didn't meet you here to waste our moments on the strategies of a siege." He pulled her closer and laid his lips on hers. He smelt a little of his borrowed leather armour, a little of steel and a little the exertions of his day. It was a combination that was purely his and she felt herself trembling at his touch and strong presence.

He paused in his kissing of her, moving her back on to the bed so that he could lie over her and bring his hands to her lacings. She helped him with them, and with the undressing of her, moving for him as he drew off her overdress and lay her back onto the bed in her shift. His eyes ranged over her, and she saw them dip to look at the core of her, covered as it was in the cotton shift and underclothes beneath.

With hesitant, shaking fingers, she drew at the shift, pulling it up her thighs. And then she brought it up higher, until it was bunched beneath her palms and away from her under things.

He exhaled out as though he had been holding his breath, but did not look away from the silk covering her. He moved forward, and with a start she realised that he had kissed her thigh. And then her other thigh. And then her belly. And the next was closer yet, as though he was an archer working at getting to the centre of his target…

"What..? What are you doing?" She whispered.

"Heard some do this." He spoke low and soft in his rasping voice. "Never done it… but…"

Then his breath was on her, and she closed her eyes. It was strange and exciting and… gods, his lips were on her, over her small clothes! He was kissing her there, through the material, his hands moving to stroke the outside of her thighs as he lay butterfly like kisses on her, his scars and his beard rubbing along her skin. She felt herself blooming down there… below, and it was like the times that they had kissed and touched, but seven times over more powerful. Was this her release? What would that feel like? This was like a strange buzzing all through her, was that it?

When his lips pushed once more strongly against her a wave of… something… pulsed through her, and she knew that it was not her release. That was still some ways off, like her own target she was shooting towards. But this, this was more than she had ever known before, and yet she wanted… more. She found her arms moving from where they had lain around her head, and her fingers moved to twine their way into his hair.

"Sandor…" She breathed, and his fingers on her thighs gripped her tighter.

And then a knock came at the door and both of them looked up at it in surprise.

"Ser? Lady?" Came Mouse's small voice through the door.

She fought back a giggle, and he nipped at her thigh with his front teeth, making her yelp a little in surprise. But then he withdrew from his place between her legs and she pouted at him as he lay down beside her.

"Answer the boy… soon I will not be able to, lass." He was nuzzling into her hair, placing more kisses on her neck.

"What is it Mouse?"

"Lord Tully requests our presence at the hall for supper. Once you are properly changed he says. Does he mean clothes or shapes? I don't know."

"Most like its both, boy!" Growled Sandor, removing his clothes.

Sansa watched him, shamelessly, revelling in being able to watch. He had… he had… kissed her there. And she had wanted more. Perhaps it was well that they quartered the dog with the boy so she could follow his example and his touch, alone, another time…

She caught the look on his face as he watched her watching him. It was a look of good humour, but also… he wanted her to look.

Then he was changing, and she knelt beside him to see what she could do to make it easier for him. But it was never easy enough, and she hurt to see him in such pain.

Soon though, the dog, the mouse and the lady were walking together to sup with the Lord of Riverrun in his hall.

***

You might not even have known that they were at siege, given the spread and richness of the food that the Lord of Riverrun put on for them that evening to officially welcome her to Riverrun. He had welcomed them to the great hall and immediately insisted that Sansa sat beside him, giving her the place of honour that night. She found the placing of his guests extremely interesting and spent much of the first course considering her uncle's intentions.

First off, placing her to his right meant displacing Jeyne from her usual seat. She seemed not to mind, and the fact that Sansa mentioned it, and apologised, for it gave them the opening to their first proper conversation. The girl was older than Sansa, had held a greater title than her own also. But there was a sweetness in her that meant she was unlike to make it known, and soon the two of them were passing kind words and knowledge of their homes between them. Jeyne had never been to Winterfell, and she wanted to know all about Robb's youth, even if it brought the tears again to her soft brown eyes. Sansa reached out cautiously, and held the lady's hand under the table. Jeyne smiled at her in return.

Eleyna sat on the other side of Jeyne, but Sansa thought she would have rather been placed further up, and opposite Simon, who was at Brynden's left, strangely higher placed than she would expect a maester to be. It would have done her little good, sadly. The maester and her uncle seemed to share a love of the tales of Ser Duncan the Tall, and Simon had brought a crinkling and ancient map of the Riverlands with him to the table from the archives to pore over with the Blackfish. They debated Dunk and Egg's route and the villages they were thought to have stopped at, arguing goodheartedly about his motivations and his actions at each, watched by a wide eyed Mouse on the other side of the dishes. He ate without taking his eyes from the two men and kept his ears open to hear their accounts of the stories.

Opposite Sansa and Jeyne were the Lord and Lady Westerling. Lady Sybil's first words to her had seemed polite enough, but then after… That night Sansa wore an old dress of her mother's. She had thought of forming something fine to wear from the smoke, but then decided it might not please Sandor, so she'd had a maid bring several gowns out of storage. The one she had chosen was a rich dark blue in a quality velvet. The style was quite old, but she liked the fit of the bodice and the sweep of the skirt. Even if did slightly smell of the herbs used to keep away moths.

"What a lovely dress." Lady Sybil had said as she moved to her place at the great table. The hall was emptying as those below the salt had already supped and were returning to their tasks and duties, and Lady Sybil's words rang out loudly in the quietening hall. "You are so brave to wear something so obviously out of fashion, Lady Stark."

There was acid in her tone, and Sansa looked up at the woman in surprise. She wore a golden silk dress, and most have been wearing almost the majority of her House's wealth in gold around her neck, wrists and fingers. Or, as she had heard once, the wealth was hers, and the title her husband's. Sybil Spicer she had been, daughter of a merchant…

"I like it well, Sansa" said Jeyne. "Some styles never go out of fashion."

Sansa smiled at Jeyne, but considered Lady Sybil as the older woman moved to sit down at the high backed chair. The woman had seen her daughter wed to a Stark, when her husband's house was sworn to the Lannisters. And now, due to her daughter's love for Sansa's brother, she was stuck in a castle in the Riverlands, waiting for the same Lannisters to kill her. Perhaps Sansa should make some allowances…

But then Lady Westerling shrieked suddenly as she sat. "What is that?! There is something under the table!"

A low bark came from under the table, and Sansa struggled to hide a smile. "That is my Hound, Lady Sybil."

"At the Crag we do not allow dogs to scavenge at the table!"

"Oh, he is not scavenging."

"Good!"

"He has his own plate, Lady Sybil." The sound of bones crunching between strong teeth came up from under the long wooden table.

Sybil peered underneath and then sat back up, fluttering her hand at her face. "What an ugly beast, such horrible scars. Surely he is not your pet?"

"No, he is not my pet. He is my guardian."

"Well!" Lady Sybil took small pecks at her food, her lips pursed. "I would not have thought such a large dog was suitable for a lady. And to have him join us at supper…"

"Greywind would often sit with Robb at supper, Mother." said Jeyne, sadness in her voice.

Lady Sybil humphed as though she had not approved of that either. As Sansa watched the woman send back her meal and request changes, she wondered if there had been much that she approved of. Ser Gawen Westerling was quiet, merely eating his meal as though he knew better than to put his head above the parapet on this or any other matter.

Sansa was about to turn to Jeyne and ask her something more of the Crag, when the entire room shook, making dust drift down from the rafters and the iron chandeliers, and knocking some of their candles away.

Her uncle and the Hound were on their feet immediately, the dog making his way out from under the table by brusquely pushing past Lady Sybil and her skirts, who shrieked more at that than the pounding from outside.

"Trebuchet, fucking trebuchet again!" Shouted the Blackfish. "They wait till we are calmed, and then begin again!"

Men ran to him for orders. Sansa felt her heart pounding with every hit, and her hands began to shake. A cold nose pushed into her hand and she looked down to see the dog at her side. She smiled down at him.

"I am well. It is just a little…" She jumped at the next hit. "I am a little afraid, I will admit."

"Do not fear… Sansa. Uncle says the walls are stronger than all the Lannisters and Freys put altogether." Jeyne smiled wanely at her, but she also looked afeared. And Eleyna was visibly trembling. Not that their parents seemed to notice or care, the Lady Sybil had taken to making an account of the forces she believed the Lannisters still had in the West, and with the Crown. Sansa glared at her, but she did not notice, or care.

A large crash echoed around the hall and then brought down a part of the ancient troubadour's balcony, empty this night, thank the gods.

"Everyone out! Move down to the lower halls!" The Blackfish shouted.

Sansa helped Jeyne and Eleyna away from their chairs and the dinner guests moved quickly out to the corridors where servants and soldiers charged about. Sansa hoped that there was some order to the chaos that she was seeing. She was caught up in the swirl of it all, trying to move towards a stairwell as the others seemed to disappear into the maelstrom of people. She managed to keep a hand on the dog's shoulder, and another twisted into Mouse's tunic.

That was why she knew the very moment that the Hound ran off, charging and skidding between the press of bodies.

"No! Sandor! Come back!" She screamed, then watched as the torches flickered and died as the dog ran past them. She grabbed Mouse and knelt by the terrified boy. "Do you remember the way back to the water gate?!"

"No… no, my lady!"

Sansa cursed in an unladylike way, not caring who heard her.

"What about the battlements? Can you get me there?"

He nodded and grabbed her hand, and the two of them ran up stairs and down corridors, before finally emerging onto the moonlit path along the edge of the walls of Riverrun. Sansa felt a stab of dizziness as she looked over and down to the crashing waters of the Trident. Looking quickly back into the courtyard of Riverrun she saw no better sight. Large jagged boulders had crashed amid the men and some were buried under them for certain. Men worked furiously with long poles to heave them over, shouting out furious commands and desperate pleas, but it had to be far too late for those poor souls underneath. She saw Maester Simon and the Blackfish heaving with the rest of them, just as desperate.

She turned back to the battlements, clinging to them as she peered into the night and tried to see the trebuchets aimed at them.

"I don't think that we should be here, my lady!" Mouse moved closer to her as soldiers ran along the battlements, past them.

"Where is he? Where is he?!" Sansa wanted to cry, but fought the tears back. He would have not left her side… never. Not unless he thought that there was some other way that he could keep her safe. She knew it. She knew it.

And then the first fire started. At first it was just a twinkling star fallen to the earth by the side of the darker wooden bones of a trebuchet. But then it bloomed orange and red, and swept over the giant's bones, scorching them. Amidst the noise of the battlements, and at this distance, she could not hear a thing from the field of the siege forces. But she could imagine the response of the lions and the Twins men. Surprise, panic, and then bellowed orders for water to be brought from the river.

But it would not be enough. Another trebuchet had blossomed. And then another, and another. Somewhere down there a large beast was racing faster than the man's reactions and setting them all alight.

Sansa ached to join him, to protect him from the soldiers as they caught on with what was happening and prepared themselves to encounter the hell hound. She wanted to call the smoke and sweep down there to cover him over with it, like a cloak to protect him. But if she changed, would the scales tip? They would be bird and dog, surely still kept apart as the curse desired… but what if she was mistaken?! If the scales tipped for them, then he would be left out there, a naked man still in pain after his change, and amidst enemies!

But as the last of the trebuchets went up in fire, she thought she saw a faint light moving towards the river, a trace of his path as his feet burnt up the grass there. It died at the water's edge and she prayed that he was coming back to her.

The Blackfish found her then, and grabbed her upper arm to pull her away from the battlements.

"Sansa! You should not be here!" He moved her towards the wooden steps.

"Wait! Uncle! Lord Tully!" He paused and she put thoughts together quickly. "Send word. Send a herald to their generals…"

"What nonsense is this?!"

"Send word to their generals. We will ride out to them tomorrow… after the sun has set… for we would speak with them."

"Girl… do not think that because their war machines are ablaze that they will meekly return to home!"

"No… But they will be confused, unsettled…"

"And what would you have me say to them?"

"You will bring me with you…"

"I will not!"

"You _will_ bring me with you. And the Lady Stark of Winterfell will stand before them, under the banner of the direwolf… and her own banner. And then she will show them."

"Show them what, Sansa? You are making no sense!"

"I will show them the power and the spirit of the North. And the gods help them if they do not leave then!"


	20. Chapter 20

**SANDOR**

Their party moved across the lowered drawbridge, the clattering of the horses' hooves resounding in the night air. The dog ran quickly alongside the horse that the Blackfish had given her. It was a mare, pretty to look at, and brushed to a white sheen by some keen stable boy. But it was skittish. He would have preferred to see her set on the back of Stranger, the black destrier would then have been the weapon neither of them could carry on this night's endeavour.

In front of her rode five Tully men in armour that gleamed under the quarter moon, three long banners arcing over them as they trotted on. Behind her, another five men. And on her other side rode the Lord Tully himself. Sandor thought dark thoughts. Eleven men. Eleven fucking men. But then, perhaps no bloody number of arms could possibly satisfy him when he was unable to raise a sword for her himself. The dog unconsciously bared his fangs and growled low in his chest.

He'd come back for her after the burning of the trebuchets. He'd leapt onto her sheets and muddied them all over again, bringing the smell of ash and burning with him. She hadn't cared. Once, he'd thought she was the sort to wrinkle her nose at every speck of dirt and mess. But his… his lady was stronger than he'd understood back then. She knew what was important, he saw that now. That, however, didn't stop her from requesting a bath for him, letting the man slide into it with a weary sigh after the maids had long since left the room and his morning change had been and gone.

But that hadn't really been about cleaning away the mud and ash, as much as about sweetening him before she told him her plan. Oh, and it had been fucking sweet. To feel her fingertips running over his shoulders as she knelt behind him and wiped away the stains of his attack on the siege engines with a cloth of linen. But he was smart enough to know that she had suggested the bath to ease him away from his usual defensive stance. When she finally told him what she intended, he had tried to respect her desire for him to hear her out. He'd bitten his tongue more than once, waiting until she had moved to the side of the bath so she could face him and see his reaction.

"It could change everything." He said, looking into those stunning blue eyes, and wishing silently the bath was large enough for both of them.

"It had to happen eventually…"

"Aye, but I thought you wanted to wait until the curse were broken."

"We can spread the word before we even think to heading North…"

"They may take you away from me." He looked away as he spoke, looking deep into the flames in the hearth.

"If we seek to treat with them, then they cannot not attack! There are rules, traditions…!"

"As the Freys observed guest right when your uncle wed their girl?! But that's not what I meant, little bird. It is not the Freys who might try take you away from me. Nor the Lannisters. It's the Tullys, and those sworn to them… and those still sworn to the Starks. They will not recognise the vows we have made to each other, girl." He still refused to look at her as he spoke, not knowing if he could finish what had to be said if he did.

But then gentle fingers turned his face to hers, resting over his scars so lightly.

"Let them try."

She kissed him then, and he held her with wet arms, pulling himself as far out of the bath as he dared in the attempt.

And for the rest of the day he had fretted in a way he had not before. He channelled it into his training of the Tully men, and they hated him all the more for it. When the mid day meal was called he went with them to the great hall and sat apart from them. A few were brave enough to sit by him and ask him more about how they should fight. Some even asked him a little about himself, and he came to see respect in some of the men's eyes. He'd never wanted it before, but it wasn't such a bad thing when it came.

The women of the castle were oddly absent, however, the hall all the quieter for the lack of their chatter. The little red bird was missing as well… He found them all later, as he walked the cool shadowy corridors, idly wondering where she might be. Those not serving the lunch were in a lower hall, working together on two large banners, their needles flashing in the sunlight that streamed in through large inner castle windows. He recognised the greys and white, and the direwolf, of course. But it surprised him to see the grey dog running and the red bird flying coming into life under the hands of so many women.

Then, the blue sky of the sigil had been the same colour as the brightness of the day. But now, in the early stretches of night the dog was a darker grey on the pale grey of the sky. And the bird… the bird was red turned to black in the darkness. He hoped that it was not an ill omen for this night. He preferred the little red song bird over the Stranger's black and red bird of prey… and it had been the song bird that had greeted him in the lower hall and returned with him to the courtyard. She had remained close after, perhaps content that the needlewomen were working well under Jeyne's guidance.

A pavilion had been set up amidst the black bones of the Trebuchet. Most of them had fallen to the ground, parts coming apart under the lick of the flames. What remained still stood over them as their party trotted towards the torchlight surrounding the red and gold tent. A dark glee filled Sandor. He had fucking done this. And he'd done it with fire.

But even as he thought that, fear shivered through him and raised the fur on his back. The power was too easy to come by now. And what she planned, if she did all that she planned… it was more dangerous for her, than for the lions and Twins men. He'd had her bloody well promise to only go as far as the first part if she could, to hold back from all else that she could do. Just an hour ago she had lain on him, her glorious red hair touching his bare chest, her breasts pressed against him through her shift… she had promised him, promised him to hold back as much as she could. He knew more about restraint now, but he also knew the temptation of this power. And she was far better at using it than him…

They reached the pavilion and halted the horses. Damn the Freys and Lannisters if they were not making them wait! Finally, gods damn them again, a group of men emerged, all in armour and all wearing surcoats of their houses. Sandor's eyes went immediately to the Lannister… Daven was it? Some cousin of Tywin's. Not someone he'd ever noted much before, even if he had been sworn to his house.

Then he heard Sansa gasp from deep within her hood. She'd worn the patchwork cloak this night, the hood covering her face in shadows. Blackfish had thought she should wear something less travel stained, and to be fair, underneath she wore a fine grey and silver brocade dress… but she'd insisted on the cloak of many colours. She'd whispered to the dog as they'd left Riverrun, telling him that she'd wanted to feel she was under his protection this night.

Sandor looked to what had made her gasp. A thin and haggard looking man in rags was held upright by a Lannister man, a dagger at his throat. The Blackfish cursed, and said the name 'Edmure' under his breath. Of course, the buggering groom of the red wedding!

Daven bowed a mocking bow. "We are here to accept your surrender…"

Brynden Tully looked about in an over the top manner. "Ser Daven, I am confused… Did you not used to have some trebuchet about here, somewhere?"

"Trebuchet can be rebuilt."

"Trebuchet can be burned once more… Riverrun's walls are high and its wells are deep. Perhaps you should save yourself the time and leave now…"

"Did you come here just to tell us to go? You should have saved yourself your own time."

"No. My lady wanted to speak with you. And I am her servant."

Daven looked about, confused, before his eyes settled on the figure on the mare in the ragged cloak.

"I see no lady… I see a mummer perhaps. Are you here to sing me a song, girl?"

Sansa's hands drew back the hood of the cloak, and she let the cloak fall down to the back of her mare, revealing not only the rich silver brocade, but also her auburn hair, gleaming in the torchlight.

Devan paused and then bowed. "My lady. Forgive me, I do not know your house sigil… the dog and the bird. But it is always a pleasure to meet a fair maiden. Tully… you should have sent word that you were to wed, and I could have given you your nephew's head as a wedding present!"

"I have the honour to introduce the Lady Sansa, daughter of Lord Eddard Stark of Winterfell, princess of the North." Brynden Tully spoke formally but also loudly, broadcasting the words as far as he could. Sandor tensed. It begins here, he thought.

Edmure's bowed head raised to consider her, and a small smile played on his lips. But Devan gave the impression of not being so easily convinced.

"What nonsense is this? You think you can find some red haired wench and wave the direwolf about and think we will believe you? Sansa Stark is wed to Lord Tyrion Lannister and her belly grows larger with his child with each full moon!"

"I am Sansa Stark, Ser Devan. I am no imposter. The poor woman in King's Landing who bears his child is some Fleabottom foundling…"

"Enough! Enough of your lies, Blackfish!"

The Hound growled. The man knew it was true, there was panic on his face, where another might laugh at what he saw as a trick.

"I am Sansa Stark. And I am of the North."

He knew the smoke was coming before he saw it, felt it in the rising of the hairs on his hackles. She'd promised, but he'd already known she would have to do this. Why would they recognise her formally? There was no buggering thing in it for them! But she could make them…

It rolled over the land, coming it seemed from the river behind them, and turning and twisting towards them. Sandor stood straighter as it brushed about him, caressing him whereas it seemed to writhe angrily about the Lannisters and Freys. But that was not the worst of it for them. True terror began with a single howl, chilling the blood even of the dog who knew what to expect from her. The first shape that came from the smoke, born from it in truth, was a sleek and quick one. It had fine and soft fur that Sansa most like still remembered brushing, but it was larger than the beast had ever been before its execution at Lord Stark's reluctant hands, full grown. Lady ran to his side and sat at guard with him, a smoke filled shadow of the direwolf he recalled seeing with the girl. And then after came her brothers and sister. He'd forgotten the names, if he'd ever paid attention when told them, but some were dark of fur, some were lighter. The largest of them, Robb's beast he thought, had had its head returned to it in Sansa's imagining, and Sandor hoped that that above all else would terrify the fucking Freys. All six lined up at his side, panting as they regarded the shivering men, showing their fangs as they did.

"I am Sansa Stark. And I am of the North. You will return your hostage, and you will make preparations to leave. Or you will see why the Stark sigil is a direwolf!"

One or two of the men turned and fled, ignoring the calls of Devan and the other officers. The one holding Edmure pushed him forward without heeding any orders. A Tully horse dashed forward and the rider grabbed him, helping him swing up onto the back. The direwolves stalked forward, growling deeply and followed by the dog, as the enemy moved forward to reclaim him.

And then they all wheeled about on their horses, the party charging back to Riverrun and leaving the line of smoke behind them as it slowly covered the beasts over. And they moved into it, letting it reclaim them, returning them to Sansa's memories.

* * *

**SANSA**

Weariness washed over her as she dismounted from the mare's back. Her uncle Brynden was already at her side to help her down, and he took her weight as she paled and leant against him.

"Thank you uncle" She whispered as she tried to clear her fog-bound head.

"You need to rest…"

But then her other uncle, her mother's brother, Edmure, was with them.

"We have to return. My wife is still held captive!"

"Edmure!" Shouted the Blackfish. The dog growled as well, as he pushed against her hand and supported her as she trembled.

"They have my wife, uncle! And she's with child!" Edmure's eyes were crazed, the rags and his thinness only adding to the madness of his look. "And if Sansa has some… strange northern power… then she can-"

"She can go to bed as soon as a maid can get her ready for it!" Sansa smiled up at her great uncle in gratitude. He gestured to a serving woman, and she, and the dog, walked Sansa back to her chamber.

Why had the smoke weakened her so greatly this time? On Tarth she had made a dress from smoke… on the isle she had summoned an immense memory of Winterfell… and the snow in Summer. Was it because she had wanted the direwolves to be more… real? Real enough to scare the men, but also real enough to feel that they were returned to her?

In her chamber she let the maid help her with her dress, and welcomed a warm bowl of thick soup that was sent up from the kitchens. The dog was given his own bowl of bones and off cuts and seemed pleased with it, even if he did stop regularly to consider her as the colour returned to her cheeks. Mouse must have been in the new chamber he and the dog had been given, and she hoped he was deep asleep at this late hour.

"Tomorrow… tomorrow, you must talk with Brynden for me. We must decide our next steps." She moved away from the simple table and lay back on the bed, the dog jumping up quickly to join her. Her voice started to quieten as sleep came to claim her.

"Why did Marta… or the gods… tell us to come here if it is not to break the siege? If they have not been made afraid by the direwolves… then we must think on others ways to send them… running." The dog crawled closer and she lay a sluggish, heavy arm over him.

"Go West to go South…" She whispered, and then fell into a dreamless sleep.

* * *

She woke to gentle kisses placed on her cheeks. She smiled and stretched, opening her eyes to see his face in front of hers.

"I did not hear your change." She said, pleased that he did not stop the almost cautious kisses.

"You were deep asleep." His lips dipped to hers, and she enjoyed the gentle touch of him as he ran his large hands over her hips. But then his face was serious and full of dark thoughts.

"Something you did drained you last night. I do not want you to do that again."

She thought of sparring with him, retaliating that he could not tell her what to do…. that they had to make use of whatever power they had… but she did not want to spoil these few moments as he lay beside her.

"Will you speak with my uncle today?"

"The Blackfish… or the wet fish?"

She stifled a laugh and then a thought occurred.

"Uncle Edmure is the Lord of Riverrun, now that he has returned from his captivity."

"Gods." Groaned Sandor. "The fool will most like order me to order you to return his Frey bride to him." He frowned. "The Blackfish seems a more sensible man… can we not return Edmure instead?"

She laughed a little.

"Little bird…" There was a warning in his voice. "He's the head of the Tully house now."

"What of it?"

"He may take it on his self to have you wed off."

"I'm a Stark! And the oldest of them that remain, at that!"

"You're a woman." He held up his hands as a thundercloud crossed her face. "I meant no offence. But head of your own house or not… you are a woman."

"But a woman with… power."

"Sansa…" His voice was full of concern. "Bloodraven had power. Spies and magic. And the history books tell us of his fate."

She looked at him intently. That was the first time he had ever mentioned a knowledge of the histories.

"You think me unread?!" Sandor laughed darkly.

"No. I just would not have thought you would be… interested in such things."

"I am interested in other things now, as it happens…"

He twisted a lock of her hair around his fingers, but then the smoke claimed it from his hand.

* * *

Sansa watched from high up on a book shelf as the three men prowled about each other. Edmure had regarded Sandor with shock at first, and then with a dislike that came out in abrupt gestures and shouting. The Blackfish was unwilling to negotiate between the new Lord of Riverrun in his fine blues and red, and the sweat soaked warrior just returned from training his own men. Instead he paced whenever they disagreed. And Sandor… it was obvious he would rather return to the courtyard and the rows of steel there…

"But she could break the siege!" Edmure waved his hands about.

"She could die trying!" Growled back Sandor.

"We need to press our advantage! Between the fires and the direwolves we have them on the back foot!"

"It is too much for her!"

"And what does a Lannister dog care about it?"

Sandor growled and looked to the Blackfish to step in.

"They have… they have an understanding." Said the older man quietly, turning away from both of them in his annoyance and staring into the cold hearth.

"They are betrothed?!" Edmure narrowed his eyes. "She cannot wed him! She must… as I did… make a match for her house's sake."

"And look how fucking well that ended, Tully!" Sandor snapped at him.

"I did my duty! And so shall she!"

"She has made her choice." Sandor said in his deep, rasping voice.

"She has no choice to make!"

Sandor's hand drifted to his sword hilt and Edmure recoiled. Sansa chirped out loud, and it was suddenly as though they realised that she had been there all along. Edmure bumbled and stumbled over words, perhaps of apology. The Blackfish growled and looked deeper into the empty fireplace. And Sandor… Sandor raised his sword hand to her, gesturing her to fly to him, and she swept down and alighted on his large palm. He went to say something, but was interrupted by a polite knocking at the door.

"Come" said Edmure and Brynden together.

Maester Simon entered, his long frame managing somehow to be deferential even as he towered over the new Lord Tully.

"Excuse me. I need to examine you again, Lord Tully."

Edmure huffed, but subjected himself to Simon's careful measuring of his pulse and his examination of his eyes and tongue.

"Your deprived thirst is still apparent in your flesh and eyes my, Lord. I will have a pitcher of water sent…"

"Yes, yes!" Edmure was impatient, but Brynden smiled warmly at the younger maester.

"Thank you Simon." He said gently.

Simon bowed and went to leave.

"Maester." Called Sandor.

"My lord?"

He let that pass. "What do you know of the… curse?"

Sansa watched the maester's eyes look to Brynden, and the older man nodded at him. "The Lord Tully has asked me to look through our archives and histories for anything that would aid you both."

Sandor nodded, and Sansa felt gratitude for her uncle flood through her.

"There might be someone at the Citadel-"

"The Citadel cannot help us." Said Sandor curtly.

"Then I will continue my search. Good day… my lords." Simon bowed deeper, and left quietly.

"You are looking for a… for a cure?!" Edmure seemed surprised.

"Of course." Growled Sandor at the smaller man. "Or did you think your niece should spend half her life as a fucking bird?!"

"I thought… but this gives us an advantage!"

The Blackfish sighed, and Sansa felt the tension in Sandor's hand. At least now he could not reach for his blade again, not without casting her from his palm.

"So she's to be a bride… or she's to be a weapon?!"

"Every man or woman in the seven kingdoms ends up as either one of those. You of all men should know that…"

And for a moment she thought he would cast her from his hand and take his sword. But that would surely only prove her uncle's point for him!

"She'll have what she wants. If that's the North, then she'll have it. If it's a wedding to me…"

Edmure went to interrupt but Sandor roared over him.

"If it's a wedding to me she wants, then she'll have it! You have a bloody sept here, don't you?!"

The Blackfish looked at him in surprise.

"Of course."

"No! No! I will not allow it." Shouted Edmure. "She has to be wed more… strategically!"

"Come on little bird… there's things to be done!"

Sandor stalked to the door, passing her to his shoulder where she settled her feathers and nestled closer to him.

* * *

**SANDOR**

When the hesitant knock came at her chamber door the girl was already half wrapped around the dog and quickly falling into sleep. He let a small growl of disapproval leave his throat as the knocking woke her. But she did not seem to mind and rose from her bed, gathering a thicker night robe to cover over her shift. Opening the door, a small smile grew on her face as she saw the Westerling girls and the maids there.

"Apologies Sansa. We thought to come earlier but uncle Brynden said it would be better to wait until after the sun was well set…" Jeyne smiled warmly. "He said your duties keep you busy during the daylight hours…"

"Although he gruffly persists in not telling us what he has you doing!" squeeked the younger Westerling girl.

Sandor held in his huffing laugh. It had been but an hour ago, in the brief time between their changes, that he had been one keeping her occupied. He'd asked her to undress for him, and she had complied, with a deep blush on her cheek of course. But also with a more knowing smile. And then he had just… looked at her… knowing that soon enough there'd be none who could refuse him the right to do so. Three days until their third wedding… and he, who'd bloody hated all that fucking nonsense and the pomp and ceremony of court, could not wait to wed her yet again in front of the Tully lords and seal this thing for the final time.

"It is… it is…"

The girls swept in, almost immediately forgetting their question. They were followed by the four maids, one young, two plump and one older and wrinkled. Sandor recognised them slightly, but Sansa seemed to know them all, greeting them warmly, although she smiled in a bemused way as they each carried in chairs to sit on.

"Sansa, it is but three days until you are wed…" Jeyne began.

Wed again, thought the dog, watching from his place on her bed.

"And there are things that must be done before then!" The two fat maids pulled Sansa's simple table closer and laid out sewing things, scraps of fine material and measuring cords.

"You'll need a dress of course…"

"I thought to wear one of my mother's-"

"Oh no! You must have something made for you." The oldest of the maids spoke and moved to her, starting to remove the dressing robe, twirling Sansa as she did. "It is bad luck indeed not to have your own dress!"

One of the larger maids, who looked very alike to the other large woman, began measuring about her with the lengths of cord over her shift. "Too thin!"

"Maybe Ser Clegane likes that…" the other plump maid was opening bottles of sweet clear wine and setting out goblets.

"He's not… he's no ser…" Sansa began, but the two plump maids…were they sisters?… over spoke her.

"Not sure I've seen much that he does like!"

The dog huffed on the bed, but they ignored him, all apart from Sansa. "Perhaps you should go and find Mouse…?" she said to him pointedly.

He gave two low barks. He wanted to hear what they thought of 'Ser Clegane'!

"Yes, but he's a skilled warrior. I've been watching him in the yard" Said the youngest maid.

"I'll bet you have, Fenella!"

Jeyne and Eleyna laughed little as they took their seats and beckoned Sansa to join them.

"Let us hope that he is skilled in other ways as well!" cackled the oldest maid as she passed the goblets around. Sandor noticed that the materials and threads on the table were being forgotten. The babbling of women had never interested him before, but this time…

Sansa had gone a deep shade of crimson.

"All that time on the road, alone… you cannot say you did not…?" began the older woman.

"We did not!" Sansa protested.

"You would not be the first, my lady, to go to a bridal bed already knowing the man…"

"Don't listen, Eleyna!" Laughed Jeyne.

"But I thought you said you and Robb-" Eleyna stopped herself quickly, but the words were already out.

"Dark thoughts be gone." Said the older woman and she threw a pinch of wine over her shoulder. Some village superstition thought Sandor darkly. As if it were that bloody easy!

But the wine that Jeyne was drinking seemed to be helping more than any local nonsense.

"He's a very striking man. Sword in hand or not." She said, moving away from memories.

"He has strong features. Good thick eyebrows. A wolfish smile…" Agreed one of the sisters.

"Scars or not, he's one you'd remember meeting." Said the other.

"And he's a very… big man." Said the youngest, Fenella, and the maids fell to laughing. Jeyne held a hand over her smile as Sansa turned a deeper shade.

"What's funny?!" Bleated the smaller Westerling girl.

"Nothing to worry your head with." Smiled Fenella.

"Is it… is it something to do with his sword? His man's sword?" Eleyna asked hesitantly. Perhaps he should have left when she'd said to. Sansa was so red he wondered if the smoke would come just because her face was aflame.

"How do they… how do they fit?" Asked Eleyna, and Jeyne groaned, covering her face in her hands. Sansa looked about ready to flee.

"The scabbard fits to the sword, trust me." Said Fenella, struggling to maintain her serious face.

"The first time…" that was Sansa, and the others turned to her. "How much blood is there the first time?"

"Blood?!" Eleyna looked faint. "Why would there be blood?!"

Jeyne placed a hand on her shoulder to calm her.

"Not much, my lady." Said the older maid. "A thimble full perhaps…" She held up a thimble from her pocket to show her. Sansa nodded.

"Does it hurt very much?" Eleyna asked, eyes wide.

"Not so very much." Jeyne said to her, drinking deeply of her wine. "And very soon there is no pain… only something much, much sweeter."

"Oh, it will be sweet like that when I wed Simon!" Eleyna exclaimed.

One of the sisters giggled and the other kicked her on her calf with her slippered foot. The older maid cleared her throat and went to speak, but Jeyne silenced her with a look. Sansa, sweet unworldly Sansa, just looked confused.

"I wish that for you, my lady." Fenella began. "But I doubt your mother would approve of the match…"

"And your father wont if your mother doesn't" said the older woman.

"But… but…" Eleyna looked close to tears. "They didn't approve of King Robb either. And Lord Tully tried to stop Sansa's wedding, and still that goes ahead!"

"What was that…?" Sansa said, confused.

"He forbad septon Alick from performing the ceremony. And the septon agreed, even when your soon-to-be lord went to him with his sword hilt in hand!"

The buggering old priest had been all high and mighty, talking about his gods and their will that all men, and women, obey their families. That, and bleating on about his fucking duty to the Tullys. And he'd had not one moment of fear, even as Sandor had threatened him with the steel. He'd simply pointed out, in that fucking reedy and piping voice of his, that if Sandor hurt him then he'd be exiled from Riverrun anyways, and there'd still be no wedding!

Sansa looked surprised. "Why did he change his mind then?"

"Your foundling, my lady. The boy… the one called Mouse…" Began the older maid, wrinkles forming as she smiled. "Went to him didn't he. Dunno what he said to the old bugger. But I aint seen the old priest without a wineskin in his hand since…"

What had Mouse done to the man? Sandor suddenly recalled what Riveriil had said to him of the boy; that one day he'd either be a master criminal… or High Septon. And since they'd announced their plans to wed in the sept Mouse had been keener than all, praising those bloody gods of his and asking him if it would make Sandor his father in truth…

He had to admit to liking the idea…

"Put Simon from your mind, sweet sister." Said Jeyne quietly. "There are other men. Just as handsome and just as well read…"

"Why do you get to have what you want and I don't?!" Gods, now he knew why he'd avoided women's talk before. The girl's shrill voice was grating on his last nerve.

"Eleyna. We're here for Sansa this night"

Eleyna paused and then smiled ashamedly at Sansa. "Forgive me my lady…"

"Of course, sweet Eleyna." Sansa smiled warmly. She was always more patient than him.

"So… on the road. All that time together. Are you claiming that you never even saw it, let alone touched it?!" Asked Fenella with dark lights twinkling in her eyes.

Sansa's face bloomed red again, and Sandor jumped quickly from the bed to push his way out of the door, intending to find Mouse in his room and a quiet place to sleep. The sound of women's laughter followed him after.

Certainly he was glad that Sansa had found some female companions… But he was seven times damned if he was going to listen to any more of their chatter!

* * *

The third wedding of Sansa Stark was a more courtly nonsense than the first two. The first, their words before the weirwood trees of the old gods, had been simply a man and a woman pledging themselves to each other. The second, during their shared dream of the sept on the isle, had been before the Seven, and he had been surprised that she had intentionally tempered the extravagance he'd thought she'd desired. But this one… This one was the overdone product of bloody necessity. And it put his teeth on edge.

A horde of yawning Riverrun folk had been ordered by Edmure, with the Blackfish standing behind him, to rise early and to sit waiting in the hard wooden pews of the sept as the sun started peaking over the horizon. Edmure had wanted just a few witnesses. Sandor supposed that he was ashamed and angry that his red haired prize was being lost to a dog. But Sansa had insisted that the whole castle be stirred for the sunrise ceremony. She'd reasoned that having as many eyes on them as possible would legitimate the wedding and also spread the tale of it wider. She was right, of course. But it didn't improve his black mood much to know that the gawking men and women were necessary. He watched them back from his place at the altar as they took in his open necked plain tunic and new leather breeches, his clean shaved half face, his hair tied back by a thick cord. Yes, he'd groomed himself this day… for her, not for them.

The commonfolk, the soldiers, serving girls and maids, wore what finery they had, although the Spicer woman had come dripping gold and fine silks as though to outshine his bride to be. And the needle women of the castle had strewn banners and ribbons about with abandon. The Stark direwolf. The Tully silver fish. The hound and bird of their new sigil. Even the three running dogs on yellow was placed with the rest by them.

And when Sansa came slowly up the aisle towards him he saw that the needles had also finally gone to work on her dress after he had abandoned them to their gossiping. He'd stayed away from her rooms for the three nights before their third wedding, and not even gone to her during the crossing over of their changes. Some buggering superstition of his own perhaps, making him cautious about being around her before the ceremony. So seeing her now, dressed in pale and dark blues like the numerous days and nights under their curse… gods, if he didn't just forget how to breathe!

She joined him at the altar, giving him that sweet small smile that was just for him.

The rest of it passed all too fast, and also altogether too fucking slow. His eyes would not leave her, not only because she was beautiful, this lady of his, but also because he was waiting with nerves in his stomach for the first sign of the smoke. She'd insisted that it should be a morning ceremony, that she could not bear not see him fall away from the altar in pain as his change came, nor let the watching gawkers see it neither. But that meant she was the one who would go. So they'd had to come up with a scheme for it all. Which was well, as long as the lisping septon bloody well got on with it!

"Marriage…" the old grey hair began to lisp, his r's sounding more akin to w's. Sansa stifled a laugh. "Marriage is what brings us together today…" Sandor risked looking away from Sansa to glare at the man. He watched the old septon's eyes dart not to him, but to Mouse in his grey and red surcoat at the front of the pews. Mouse nodded and the septon coughed, before speeding through the vows, pausing only to let them answer and say their words. What had the boy done to him?!

Then there was the cloaking. And as he had in their dream, he took off his hound and bird cloak and wrapped it about her. He'd thought perhaps that wedding her under the three dogs might have confirmed it in the minds of the watchers that it had actually bloody happened… that Sansa Stark had wed the fucking Hound and that there was nothing that they could do about it. But he'd hated the thought of her under the yellow, and it would do her cause in the North no good for her to ride out under it. So their new sigil was made into a cloak and he confirmed their marriage with the hound running and the bird flying. A blue cloak with a large hood.

There were more than a few murmers from the congregation as the bride drew the hood up over her famous red hair. None had seen such a thing at a cloaking before. But there were many more shocked faced and comments when he pulled her up into his arms!

"You'll excuse me, lords and ladies, but I am keen to get on with the bedding…" the septon gasped. "And I'm not waiting until after the feast you'll be having this evening to celebrate this union."

Edmure went to stand in protest but the Blackfish pulled him back down to his seat. Sandor walked quickly from the sept, his bride cradled in his arms as people stood and wagged their tongues in surprise. It wasn't customary, but it, like the pomp and the ceremony it was necessary. Not only because it would fix his claim on her in their minds and the minds of others… who could fail to mention the terrible manners of the dog who had been desperate to mount his pretty young wife…? But also because she was already starting to fade away.

In the courtyard Sandor looked down at his wife, her face framed by the hood as whisps of smoke began to escape from it, tension around her eyes as she held on.

"It is done… you can let go now… my lady." She nodded, and the cloak became lighter as the smoke fled from it and the red songbird flew to his shoulder. But then she sent the smoke forth again, and filled up the space of the cloak and its hood. From a distance a man would be fooled into thinking the great oaf Sandor Clegane was still carrying his trembling bride to their wedded bed.

But Sandor got to her chamber unhalted. He let the cloak fall as the bird took a perch on the end of the bed post.

"Can't say this is how I ever imagined my wedding night… day… to be. But then I can't say I ever bloody imagined it before neither." He poured himself some of the fine wine left there for them, into one of the two golden Riverrun goblets standing waiting for them. "I drink to my lady." He drank deeply as she trilled a joyful song.

Then he put down the goblet and moved to the small drawer in her dresser that she had told the dog about. Inside, hidden under curious silky things he'd liked to look on more another time, was a small pig iron thimble. He rolled it between his thumb and forefinger. "Clever girl. I would never have thought of asking how much. Or been able to ask a woman about it, at that."

He drew his dagger and filled the thimble with blood from his left palm, only a few drops really, nothing at all to him. But more than his little bird would bleed this wedding day, and they still had to show it had all been sealed, that his claim was valid. He moved to the bed, drawing back the coverlet and dripping it roughly where he thought it should go. Gods only knew if it looked right. He'd never been with a maiden before…

The midday meal came eventually, two plates brought to their chamber by the only one they could let in, Mouse. He came in bearing not only their meal, but also a wide smile that almost reached his ears.

"You've scandalised the castle!"

"That's a big bloody word for you, boy!"

"Been listening to maester Simon. Heard him once mention the Citadel being scandalized or something…"

"Never mind that. Are they laughing?"

"Some. Some of the men seemed like they were jealous of you. Fine woman, they said, why wait for the feasting, they said. Why not have her-"

Sandor interrupted. "You shouldn't know about these things…"

"You want to spend time with our lady. What's wrong with that?"

"Nothing boy, nothing."

Mouse finishing setting down the dishes, lamb and vegetables in a thick, rich red wine gravy… strong bedding food for those that need the energy… and looked at them enviously.

"Eat boy. It ain't like she can. And we need two cleaned plates to send back to the kitchens."

Mouse near jumped into the seat as Sandor sat down as well. They ate quickly, messily, in companionable silence for a while.

"Does this make you my father now?" Mouse mumbled around his mouthful.

"Don't speak while you eat, boy" Said Sandor, ignoring his own full mouth.

"Is that a yes?"

"Suppose it is. Do you want it to be?" Sandor risked a look up, away from his food, and looked into Mouse's smiling eyes.

"Of course! Though… does that mean I am Harlon Clegane now?"

"No lad. There's two too many Cleganes as it is." He and Sansa had tried out some names before, trying to work out some cadet branch name from Stark that used some of the Clegane. They were all ugly, and all weakening to her claim on the North. No, she would remain a Stark. But he was no Donal Vallen who could take his lady's name and forget his old. The Hound, Sandor Clegane, was too infamous for that. It was a name forged in blood and steel. So he'd keep it, but sharpen it in service of her.

"Ah, okay." They ate on.

"And I can still be your squire?"

"Of course, boy. Sons squire for fathers."

"Good." They ate on.

"And when will you put a baby in her belly?"

The food near flew from Sandor's mouth as Mouse waved his fork about in his excitement.

"I know you cannot as things are now… but you will, won't you?! I was younger when… when my sister was born… but I could be much, much more useful now! I could even take care of the waste cloths and the cleaning of them… I wouldn't mind at all! And I would look after the baby and protect her…"

The little bird was singing again, another song of joy. But was there a note of sadness there also? She knew they could not… She could not, if she was right about her moonblood. Even their first bedding had to wait, and for now be faked in his own blood with a thimble… But one day…

"Aye, lad. I'll put a baby in her belly, when she wants one. More than one most like. You could be run quite busy with the cloths and the like. You might even come to regret offering to help!"

"No, no, I don't think I would!"

Sandor smiled darkly. But in his mind he was imagining the pups they could have. Like weddings, children had been the daydreams other people had. Silly young girls, as he'd once thought her to be, spent their hours thinking of names for babes, and of how they would look. Not men with blood on their hands. Hands that could hold children, perhaps. Would they get her hair and eyes? He'd like that. A babbling crowd of small girls with red hair and blue eyes… He shook his head slightly, disturbing the daydreams. If it happened, it happened…

The boy took the plates away and Sandor settled to an unusual day of leisure; the bird singing to him, the sounds of the training going on without him in the courtyard, idly reading snatches of the histories she'd gathered by her bed… He wasn't one for lounging about, and by the time the sun was beginning its descent he was aching to be doing something… anything. But the thing he wished to be doing the most would have to wait still. There was no time this sun's set even for married kisses and quick embraces. In the great hall a feast was being prepared and the new lord and lady would need to make an appearance.

He made his way down towards it with the bird on his shoulder, but he arrived through the great doors with his lady holding his arm. She blushed prettily as a great cheer went up from the crowds, and as more than a few men slapped him roughly on his shoulder for keeping his bride locked away all day. A few women, including the Westerling girls, tried to take Sansa away, to beg for all the dirty details no doubt, but he kept her close to him. They only had long enough to sit at their places of honour and for him to make a quick toast to the Lords of Riverrun. Then, as the fires began in him, he slunk away. Some might make note of it, but his reputation in the castle was well set by now. Let them think he was displeased by the noise and the fanfare, let them think he liked no one and nothing. The dog returned moments after and took his place at her feet, listening to her feeble protests about not wanting to share the secrets of their newly made marital bed, and he laughed his huffing laugh.

But all he could think about was that thimble. Such a small thing, unable to fit on his large fingers as it did hers. A thimble full of blood. A lie to seal this marriage. And all he could think of was how much he wanted it done in truth.

* * *

**SANSA**

She was giggling loudly. And she did not care.

She was casting smoke about her with abandon. And she did not care.

She was happy. Her marriage with Sandor had been made before all the men and women of Riverrun. He had sat at her side, albeit briefly, at the great feast to celebrate their union, and everyone had seen them together. The Hound and his little bird, wed three times before old gods, new gods and men. Sealed together in a way that could not be denied. Sealed and toasted with wine, many times over. Lots and lots of wine.

Her fingertips fluttered through the air as she cast smoke into twirling, swirling tendrils that raced down the empty corridor and flowed about her skirts. The dog wasn't happy about that, but she returned his three harsh barks for danger with yet more light laughter. She could tell that he was concerned that she'd drunk too much of that sweet wedding day wine! Him! He could talk! Or not. Being a dog, and all!

She laughed as a thought occurred and she made a pack of miniature dogs and wolves that ran through her fingers and raced against the flagstones, arcing up to the torches and snapping at each other's heels. Birds took wing after them, on smoke coloured wings, whispery things that sang her songs of joy.

It was an awful lot easier to cast the shapes if she did not care to make them look real. The pack of direwolves that had terrified Daven and his Lannister and Twins men had needed to look like flesh and blood, sharp of tooth and red of claw. But these little fancies were just for her. And perhaps a little for him. Was she feeling a dark kind of glee because he was tensing like a pulled bow, concerned by her silliness? With a determined line to the set of her lips, she concentrated and made a series of alluring women who danced in smoke made silks, all no bigger than her forearm, and sent them spinning and flirting down the corridor, blowing kisses back to the girl and the dog. The smiling wife and her grumpy husband.

He stopped, dropping to his haunches, a low growl rumbling through his belly.

"Oh Sandor!" She sighed. "Can we not have some fun? Within these walls we are safe. We are wed. And I have had a lovely evening!"

He huffed. A laugh, finally?! But then he got to his feet again, padding away down the corridor with a determined step, heading towards her rooms.

She sighed and waved a hand to dismiss the smoke made women, and joined him where he waited at the door to her chambers. Their chambers now she supposed, a thought which reminded her of their trick with the thimble again. How she wished that they could do it in truth!

In fact, with the sweet wine flowing in her veins, she was finding it difficult not to think of the bedding that should have followed this feast. Some of the men had still suggested that they lift her up and bring her to these rooms, to bring her to her missing hard faced groom, and to go ahead with the bedding as it was normally done. But the Blackfish had stepped in for her, allowing her to depart the rowdy feast hall with a modicum of decorum and to walk back to her rooms alone but for her ever present dog guardian. Just a modicum though, because as he had wryly smiled down at his great-niece weaving, wobbling steps had taken her from the feast table as she had announced her desire to go to bed. But he could hardly criticise her, he'd been leaning close to maester Simon, drinking hard spirits with him for a good hour before she'd decided to go abed!

She opened the door for them.

The light and colour made her gasp before she could even make out what it was she was seeing. And she had to hold a hand to her eyes to see them clearly as they raced around the room, growing on pulsing stems and tendrils. Flowers, their petals bursting open as the fire that made them lit up the entire room with reds and oranges. But the fire flowers did not burn, the only heat was a comfortable cosy warmth, as the flowers grew outwards from the lit hearth and twisted their way about the curtains of the bed, the paintings on the walls, even along the fine rugs on the floor, making her a glowing carpet of light.

"Oh Sandor!" She gasped, crouching quickly to wrap her arms about the stock still dog. He was panting with concentration, and all too soon he lowered his head and the fire died back, the flowers fading into darkness, even if the image of them was still burnt into her mind.

"They were so beautiful! Thank you!" She placed a kiss on his burnt muzzle and he huffed his dog laugh. Unsteadily she got back to her feet and pushed their door to. Perhaps he was right. Perhaps some things, their powers for one, should only be shared when they were certain to be alone. A thought occurred and would not be dismissed, a thought of other things to be shared while alone. Her hands moved clumsily to the laces at the back of her dress.

The dog watched her with dark eyes as she slipped the fine dress from her, standing before him in just her shift. As he liked her.

"In the morning, when you change, come to my bed, my lord." She lowered her eyes, a blush blooming on her cheeks like the fire flowers he had made her. Even for all the ways in which they had begun exploring each other, Sansa still found herself embarrassed talking about such things. "Come to my bed, my lord, and claim your wife."

He snapped out two low barks. 'No'.

"I know that you would say what you have always said. That there is not time enough. That you do not wish to hurt me." She slowly moved her hands to the straps of her shift. "But we have waited long enough. I am yours and you are mine, and I would have my lord in my bed as he has been in my heart. And pain is just pain. Love is so much more."

The dog lowered himself to lie on the hard, cold floor, as though staking a claim to that place for the night. And for the next morning. He was defiant, even when it was what he wanted! Stubborn, foolish man!

She let the shift and her small clothes drift down over her skin as she turned and walked towards the bed, exposing the long lines of her back and her legs to him, the curve of her behind and the swing of her long red hair over her skin. She settled into the bed, the wine finally catching her in an embrace that brought sleep even as she looked at him from under heavy lidded eyes.

"Please, come to my bed, my lord. When we are man and wife again." She mumbled against the pillows. But the dog did not move.

In the morning when she felt his weight press down suddenly on the bed, she smiled. She had known he wanted this, he could hardly deny that his desire for her was becoming more and more apparent during their brief times between changes. That he did not want to hurt her only made her want him more. That he bore pain every single time he changed made her even more certain that she could bear the smaller pain of the breaking of her maidenhood. That he wanted more time with her than their changes allowed… well, they were wed now and they had the rest of their lives together for exploring the passion that they felt for each other.

She rolled over onto her back and looked at him in the dark half-light of morning. He was stalking his way up the bed, the dog still in him a little as his naked form crouched over her, his hair hanging about his face. He was a beast of a man, many had said it. And she could see it clearly in the hunting lines of his body and his face as he came closer to her. She smiled and pulled the sheets away from her nakedness, for him. "My love." She whispered.

He lay over her, running lips over her neck as he used his hands to gently part her thighs about him, fitting himself into the warm spaces of her, the places he had a right to now. She'd felt pressure down there from his manhood before, and it had thrilled her to know he wanted her so fiercely. Now, with nothing standing between them she'd expected it to be even better yet, even if her body still tensed slightly at the expectation of the pain of the breaking.

But… but… there was nothing. Nothing but a strange numbness when the flesh of his manhood should have been touching at the entrance of her. She frowned. She had not expected this. Of all the things she had heard in gossipy whispers about the first bedding of a woman by her husband, she had not heard this.

"Sandor?" She asked, confused.

"Not Sandor." He whispered at her ear, and she pushed back at him in horror. His face was not his own. It was the unremarkable face of Heyrick!

She screamed as the vile septon smiled darkly. She struggled against him, pushing and scratching at him.

"If he'd taken you by now I could show you such horrors! I could twist his love into dark and bloody force. I could show you what was about to happen to you during the riot before he came for you. No matter. You have memories enough of other horrors I can use."

His face shifted again and it was Joffrey. It was Boros. It was Meryn. It was Ilyn Payne. It was the faces of the filthy wretched men who'd pulled her from her horse.

"No!"

"And I can have your father watch." He gestured and she followed his hand to where her father's head was pierced by a spike in the middle of her room, standing next to Septa Mordane's just as she had seen them on the wall as Joffrey had shown her.

"Or I can take you to any number of places you have seen, or imagined, and tried to forget." The room shimmered and she was lying naked on the floor of the throne room, surrounded by all the lords and ladies of Joffrey's court as she tried to cover herself. And then it was Winterfell, a burnt husk, with Bolton flags flying high over the courtyard where she lay naked, watched by dark figures wearing the flayed man. And then she was outside of Riverrun, amidst the tents of the Lions and the Twins men, surrounded by soldiers who were jostling each other as they formed into lines, waiting for their turn with her.

A man separated himself from the pack of laughing men, and walked closer to her. He had the same bland face as Heyrick, but she had never seen him before. "I can take you anywhere you remember, 'little bird'. Now I know where you are, I can bring you nightmare after nightmare until your mind breaks."

She fought back, calling on the smoke and on the red and black bird of prey within her, and for a moment the image of the siege shimmered and she was back in their chambers, the naked shape of Sandor leaning over her on the bed with concern writ across his face, his lips moving but no sound coming out. She reached for him but her arms did not move. She screamed for him but no noise came from her. And then suddenly behind him was Gregor, swinging his greatsword at his naked brother as he had done on the beach after the Courtesan's Wish had been beached. Blood ran from Sandor's chest as the scar he'd been given by his brother that night reopened in front of her eyes. Blood splattered the sheets as it had done when Sandor had faked the breaching of her maidenhood for the gossipy serving girls. Then she was back in the long dark tunnel below the corrupted Sept, and Heyrick was pulling her into the dark…

And the dark held on to her, and would not let her go as she rode from nightmare to nightmare. Even as the smoke took her and the bird fluttered mindlessly on their marital bed, the nightmares still held her tongue, her eyes wide open and staring as Sandor raged and panicked, his screamed words stolen away by her captor.


	21. Chapter 21

SANDOR

“Five fucking days!” He roared and the Blackfish moved to get between him and Simon. “Five fucking days and still all you’re doing is checking on her fucking heartbeat!” His hand was on the hilt of his borrowed greatsword, even as he sat at her side.

“Simon’s been up every single night trying to find an answer!” The Blackfish had his hand on Sandor’s shoulder, preventing him from racing at the tall thin maester who had moved towards her.

“Books?! What good are your fucking books?!”

“Let him get to her Sandor. Let him look her over.” The Blackfish was slowly removing his cautionary hand from Sandor’s shoulder. Good, because he had been close to fucking well losing it!

Sandor growled again as the maester stepped forward hesitantly. He was not long from his own change and he still felt the dog’s desire to bite so very keenly.

“Father! Please, father. He just wants to help her.”

His head snapped to Mouse where he sat on the other side of her bed, his tired brown eyes wide and pleading. Sandor’s growl deepened but he moved away from her, letting the maester take his low seat for a moment. Simon was as worn thin as the boy. The tall robed was grey of skin, with dark shadows under his eyes and a few days of stubble on his chin.

Mouse was just as pale but where the measter had started moving slower and slower over the days, the boy was a living fidget, a twitching mess constantly held in some stilled action. He never left her side but to run errands for any who asked him for something to help her. He brought the honeyed water that they’d found she could just about swallow, the heated water the maids used to wash her, even the soft cloths Sandor shaped around the bird for a closer nest on the bed when her change came. Sandor had never seen the boy run so fast before. He’d realised long ago that it was because the boy needed to be back at her side with a mad urgency. Sandor wondered if he had not been there for his own mother when the red pox took her. And his little sister.

But this was not the pox. True, Sansa was pale, her hair frequently tangled into sweat drenched fronds that Sandor had often taken on himself to gently comb out, but she had no fever. The sweat was the sweat of fear. She dreamt. And the dreams were terrors.

“Her pulse is weaker today.” Said Simon in a wane voice.

Sandor pushed him aside and took his seat again, lifting her slight form into his arms. “Pass me the water, boy.”

Mouse leapt into action, passing him the horn cup, and Sandor cradled her as he tipped small amounts of the honeyed liquid into his wife’s mouth. She swallowed, but it was the reaction of her body and not of her mind. She was so light he wondered if her change was already coming, that she was already half smoke. But there was time yet, and she was just wasting away. Leaving him.

He could fight men for her. He held his sword hilt day after day by her side because his blood pounded through his veins readying him to battle for her. But there was no battle. He could tear men’s flesh with his fangs if she asked him. Night after night the dog prowled the room, snapping at shadows. Even now, he itched to change back again and to become the dog… no damn it, to become the fucking ‘hellhound’ that had attacked Malakor and his people. He burned inside to rain his fire down on her enemies. But this thing that had her could not be fought like that.

He’d tried sending to her almost as soon as he’d found her like this. Found her in the morning after the fucking longest night of deciding whether to go to her bed as she had so sweetly asked him to…

Almost straight away he’d sent a dream to her, and for just a moment her eyes had opened as he’d sent the dog to run through her mind, leading her back to him. But his hopes had sunk with her eyes as they’d closed again. Several times since then she’d surfaced enough to stare blindly at the ceiling, or to clench her fists, or to moan in terror. But most of the time she was perfectly still, sleeping it seemed, but so lightly breathing that he had repeatedly held mirrors to her lips, his heart in his mouth until they fogged over.

Edmure entered the room, and Sandor just glared at him. The man brought him no fucking comfort, even if that was what he regularly claimed his purpose to be. He was checking on his niece, aye. But was he really just checking on his precious siege breaker? Twice now the cunt’s lips had said the worst possible thing and the Blackfish had had to stop Sandor from breaking his bloody neck!

“How is she this day?” Edmure said, taking a seat at the table, as though this was some amiable fucking breakfast.

“Weaker.” Said the Blackfish, and Sandor noted the frown on the Tully twat’s face at the news.

Simon was pacing. “There must be some reason to this. Some sense!”

“You’ll go mad looking for it, Simon.” Said Blackfish in a hoarse voice.

“No, I can’t believe that. I never studied the deeper mysteries. But they can be studied. Which means that they can be understood. I can understand this!”

Sandor looked away from him, resting his eyes on her face. She was beautiful even in her captivity and he felt his breath leave him as he considered losing her, just as they had finally tied themselves together. He took her hand, looking up as he saw Mouse take her other. He’d expected the boy to be wearing his knees raw in the Riverrun sept like Jeyne and Eleyna, as he had done on the Isle when she’d left them there.

“What do the Seven say, boy?” He asked quietly, without a trace of mockery in his voice for once.

Mouse’s face screwed up and tears formed at the corner of his eyes. “They say she has to fight.”

Sandor nodded. He couldn’t fight this battle for her and it killed him. But she was strong. Stronger than these men knew.

“Why now?!” said Simon suddenly.

“What’s that?” Sandor asked gruffly, past the pain in his throat.

“Well, we agree that this is not natural. It is no pox, no fever. We agreed that it comes most like from your Smiling Brothers and is of the same power that you have learnt to wield. But you said that they’ve likely dogged your trail almost the whole of your time on the road. Finding you aboard the ship, yes? But then losing you in the smoke on the shoreline when you fought your brother. So why this, why now?”

Sandor’s brows furrowed. The maester might be onto something. If they could bury her in nightmares before, why wait? Why send his own fucking brother after the two of them? Or the man Sansa had seen die on the sand? What was different about things now? Then suddenly the image of their new sigil came to mind.

“The wedding?” asked Mouse.

Sandor shook his head. “No boy. Not the wedding. Sansa’s message to the Lannisters! I told her that this could change everything!”

“I don’t understand?” Mumbled Edmure.

“They hunted us, but they didn’t really know where we were!” Sandor stood. “Until Sansa revealed herself to Devan Lannister! And the fucker must have sent word back to King’s Landing. And there have to be Brothers there too!”

“So what does that mean?” Asked the Blackfish.

A moment’s pause was broken by that wretch, Edmure, as he realised. “No!”

“They have to leave.” Said Simon simply.

“No! They are our only chance! They can break the siege!”

Sandor had him away from the table and up against the wall before either of the other two men could react. Oh it was a sweet fucking pleasure to have the slight man’s neck in his hand and have the whining lordling finally silenced!

“Sandor!” bellowed the Blackfish.

“Tell me you’ve fought, Edmure! Tell me that you’ve actually gone up against your enemies and sweat blood in their killing! Tell me you have some fucking muscle under all those fine velvets! Tell me, because I would dearly love to take you to the courtyard and find out whether you can swing a fucking sword, or whether you’re actually saying you want a dying girl to do it all for you!”

“Let him go!”

He squeezed harder, relishing the changing shades of the cunt’s face.

But then he stopped. Swallowing as the taste of lemons blossomed on his tongue. No, not lemons… sour but also sweet. Lemoncakes! Her favourite, she’d said to him once!

“Sansa?” He dropped the gasping man and ran back to her, grasping at her hand again.

Smoke was tumbling from her, and she was just as still as ever, even as the change made her over into the small bird, and taking her soft hand from his. But those lemons in his mouth… That was her! He knew it! He knew it!

“How do we do this, maester?!”

“They need to lose you.”

“So they leave.” Said Brynden.

“No. I doubt it’s that simple. If they know where she is, if they’re in her head, then that connection has to be forcefully broken first. And then you must be gone before they can find you once more.”

Mouse looked up at him, and he did not care that the boy could see the tears there on his face.

“She has to fight. The Seven say so.”

“Aye, boy. She has to fight. And we’ll be with her as she does.” He lifted the small sleeping bird into his great hand and held her gently there, cupping his fingers about her bright red feathers.

“You hear me, Sansa?! You fight now. You fight… where I cannot.”

* * *

 

SANSA

Sansa straightened her back with a certain determination of mind. Before smiling pleasantly at the man coming now to sit opposite her at the long table, and delicately unfurling her napkin onto her lap as she did.

“I do not believe we have met, Septon…?”

“Ektor. You may call me Ektor, Lady Sansa.”

He was a plain looking man, unremarkable really, and Sansa saw him as the perfect trial subject for the lessons Septa Mordane had given her in their cramped, rickety carriage on the road south from Winterfell. First, she must express the correct level of deference, or indifference, based on his status. However, a Septon was neither a Warden, nor a Lord, a knight, nor commonfolk. But Septa Mordane saw the clergy of the New Gods, and quite rightly perhaps, as above and beyond all normal titles and all mundane sorts of orders. Although, the Septon had offered her his name without title. It was a puzzle really, how to treat such a man!

She looked briefly down the richly appointed dining table to where the other lords and ladies were conversing freely. Queen Cersei was at the head of the table, glowering it seemed, at something at the other end of the room. King Robert was at the other end with her father, rambling on loudly about some adventure or other. And Joffrey was in the middle, some seats from her, still not talking to her after what had happened on the road… which was somewhat hazy… she could not recall quite what had happened… something about a boy running?

“You seem ill at ease, my daughter?”

“Forgive me, Septon Ektor. We are but recently arrived from Winterfell. And King’s Landing is-”

He interrupted her. “A world unlike any you have known?” She blushed. “It is apparent from your demeanour my child.”

She leant a little forward, careful not to spill the soup on her spoon that had been just moments from being brought to her mouth. “Is it really so obvious?!”

“But utterly charming to find one so defenceless! Spend any amount of time in King’s Landing and you will find that there are swords behind every smile.” Ektor smiled, but there was something curious about it, and something familiar, that escaped her.

A movement caught her eye. A large furred shape darted from a corner by King Robert and was gone into the shadows under the table. One of the King’s hunting dogs perhaps?

“And how do you find your betrothed, my daughter?” Asked Ektor, with that same smile.

“Joffrey is-” she turned her head to look at his scowl, his face dark under his golden curls. He was cross with her still. But she loved him. She loved him? But that did not seem right at all. When she thought of love she thought of a shape standing over her, protecting her. A fire burning and a dog running. How strange! Such things were not at all to do with love, which was born of poetry, and chivalrous acts by handsome men. So why was she thinking on a face half twisted, but no less attractive to her because of it?

“Joffrey is my beloved.” She smiled and ate her soup. “He will be a fine and wise king.” But the words started to feel like heavy lead weights on her tongue until she had to force them to leave her. “And I wish only to be a dutiful wife to him.”

“Of course you do, my dear.”

“When will the weddings be?” She gasped a little. No, that was not right! There would only be one wedding, in the Great Sept of Baelor. It was near blasphemy perhaps to suggest anything else! A marriage in among the Weirwood trees would not go down at all well with a Septon!

“As soon as possible I imagine. Your prince wants you as soon as possible.”

She drew back a little. “No, but he can’t… I am not yet a woman.”

“Yes, you are Sansa.” Said Ektor, cutting into his pink joint of meat with strange relish.

She looked down at the spreading red in her lap. “No, no, no!”

“He will be having you soon.”

And I’ll be glad of the hateful things you do, she thinks, the words echoing in her chest. Something licked at her hand and she jumped in her seat, standing suddenly. And then all eyes were on her and the red stain on her finest silks. “Father?” her voice trembled as she reached towards him.

“You’ve shamed your house, Sansa!” Lord Stark turned from her then in disgust as Cersei laughed, and laughed and laughed. And Robert leered at her. “Fine teats that birdling has, now that I’ve seen them!” he bellowed and grabbed at his crotch.

She looked down at her torn dress, feeling the coldness of the stone floor in the great hall of the Keep on her knees. Tears of shame flew down her face as she tried to pull the rags back together.

Someone will cloak me, she thought desperately, someone will share their cloak with me.

But no one did.

Joffrey lounged above her, sprawled across that wretched throne. Naked.

“Look on your husband!” He giggled insanely. “Look on your beloved.”

She turned her head away and Ser Blount hit her again, pushing the air from her in a sob that echoed around the empty hall.

“No.” She gasped. “No. It did not happen like this!” She looked up again at Joffrey, hardly seeing his now decaying grey-blue skin as her eyes searched to the right of him, where his most trusted man would surely stand. Shadows lay empty.

She lay down, pressing her face against the hardest stone. And then it became fur. Deep winter grey fur. Warm and kept soft by her regular brushing. She remembered singing as she cared for Lady, trilling happily as she dreamt of King’s Landing and Prince Joffrey Baratheon. She sank her head and her tears into the warmth of Lady’s fur, knowing already that blood would be seeping into her skin and hair. Lady was gone, by her father’s sword. And a boy had run.

Footsteps. Her eyes flickered open to see the man in humble brown robes approaching.

And then she was somewhere else. A dream perhaps. Where gentle women’s hands lifted her limbs and washed her skin, before powdering her and slipping a plain nightdress of cotton over her head and down her wasting body. And then a large man held her in his arms and laid sweet water to her lips. It was a pleasant dream to have while the Septon laughed at her weakness. While her father’s head was on a spike in the middle of the dining table as the lords and ladies supped. While Joffrey paraded his recently flowered betrothed through the riots and offered her to the men in rags that ran there.

At the Tourney of the Hand she drifted into day dreams of the immense man with the honeyed water, ignoring the joust between Jaime Lannister and a puppy tied onto a black pony. A grown dog, she thought, slipped under the seats and pushed its head under her hand. But when she looked down there was nothing there but sawdust and forgotten treats being nibbled on by a small brown mouse.

The last knight standing, the Mountain, smeared in the blood of the Tyrell Flowerknight, threw the head of a defeated minor knight into the cheering crowds, and Sansa saw that it was her father’s head again.

Again. How many times had it been her father’s head? How many times had Blount beaten her, or her moonblood been seen by others and mocked? How many times had Joffrey threatened to give her to the common men baying for blood by the gates?

She frowned as her father offered her his hand to take her from the tourney grounds. “No, father, don’t you see? There is one more entrant. One more who wishes to claim your prize.”

Ned frowned, squinting into the sun. And suddenly Septon Ektor was behind him, near emerging from the shadow of her father. “The tourney is over for now, Sansa.” Ned began “But there will be other days and other knights for you to admire-”

“No, do you not see him? The final knight.” The lists were empty, the stands echoing with departing footsteps. “His steel is dented and borrowed. He wears mismatched pieces from many suits of armour. His cloak is patched together from parts of silk. And his sigil is the red bird flying, and the grey dog running, both on a clear blue, like the sky.

“There is no knight! Come now Sansa, no more of your fancies!” Ned went to pull at her.

“He comes.” She stood and cheered, and the stands were at once full of the folk again as the pounding hooves of the patchwork knight’s steed drummed into the earth.

“No!” shouted Ektor.

She glared at him. “Who will you set against my champion? The Mountain? I saw him fight him, naked and unafraid! Some other foul conjuring of your mind? My knight is stronger and faster than any you could imagine, and he is real.”

The knight drew his black horse to a halt before the stands and saluted, raising his greatsword with one steady hand, his face still hidden in the beaten helm he wore.

“Will you challenge him, Ektor? Will you challenge me?” Smoke swirled about the tourney grounds, robbing men of their field of vision. But they did not cry out, they were not real.

“I will beg your leave, Lady Sansa. For this day is yours. Or however you would like me to put it in a fancy, civil, tongue. But the day is coming when I will stand above you, red with the blood of you and your knight, and I will feast on your heart!”

Sansa laughed lightly, straightening her back again nevertheless. “How charming it has been to meet you Septon Ektor. I certainly will not forget our conversations these past few… what has it been? Moments? Weeks? Time certainly flies like a swift little red songbird when you are in such pleasant company.” The smoke flared around her and darted towards him like attacking vipers. But Ektor was already fading into nothingness.

She turned and smiled towards her knight. “My love.” She whispered as he raised his helm, revealing an empty interior that shined and gleamed like mirrored glass. The dog was at her hand again, a steadying presence as she felt her strength leave her. “Catch me” She whispered hoarsely as she fell.

* * *

And woke.

Strong arms moved about her and drew her up before she could even fully open her eyes. And then there was a dizzying feeling of motion as she was carried swiftly through darkened corridors, torches flaring into light as they passed.

“Wait?!” A worried voice chased after them. “I have the rest of what you asked for!”

Sansa looked back as best she could, looking around the broadness of the man who carried her in his arms, a nightdress slicked to her skin with rapidly cooling sweat. Behind them ran two figures, a young man in plain robes and an older man in chainmail and a surcoat. She looked up at the man who carried her and saw a side of his face covered over in twisting scars and melted flesh. And its ruined lines pleased her, and for a moment the sight erased the horrifying plainness of Ektor’s face.

“Sandor” She said smiling and he looked down at her.

“We must run, Sansa. We must get you away from Riverrun as quickly as possible. Mouse found a tunnel, blocked up it seemed, but it takes us under the water and out to the woods.” His voice rumbled through his chest and down into her. She ran a hand across his back, curling her fingers into his hair, her other hand finding an arm cradling her. And the scorching heat of him.

“Your change?”

“There is no time!” She noticed the flaring torches reflected in his eyes, and the pain there.

“Put me down Sandor. I can run.” She looked back at Simon and Brynden, running after them. “And I will have help if I cannot.”

He shook his head gruffly, but a growl came from his tortured throat.

“Change, Sandor! The dog can guide me.”

“Mouse is waiting there… in the tunnel…” Sandor carefully placed her on her feet and started shrugging off his tunic. “He has scouted out the way back to the followers camp.”

“Please Sandor, let the change come.”

He growled once more, and the torches charred the ceiling of the stony corridor, before his body twisted and warped into the dog’s.

“By all the gods!” gasped the Blackfish as they finally caught up. Sansa faltered and Simon was there at her side, before being pushed away by the large mastiff who took his place with a growl. “I had never seen him change before. The poor bastard!”

“Enough, uncle! Sandor is set that we should leave. So help me to this tunnel!”

* * *

 

MOUSE

The voices came from deeper down in the tunnel, echoing and warping as they made their way back towards him at the first gate. But he knew them, knew hers first of all as it flowed towards him. Mother.

“Where is your knight, little Mouse?” She whispered, sounding a little like his own lady mother, but older, a voice made steel with age. It was a voice that could send him gently to his sleep, or to his room without supper. “Where is he?”

“He comes Mother. He comes. My mother woke and now we leave.”

“Where is your army, little Mouse?” Came another voice, one that he had been afraid of once. Afraid of its sharp edges and quick fists. Now it sounded deeper, a rasping voice that could only come from a taller, braver man’s mouth. His new father, Sandor, spoke with this voice. “Where are they?”

Mouse thought of the wooden knights that his new father had made him at the Quiet Isle. The endless battles they’d fought on the dusty flagstones of Elder Brother’s sanctuary as his mother had talked through her pain with the gentle man. “With our packs. With the horses.”

“No. Not there.” This voice was older yet. It crackled with age and cynicism as it raced towards him up from the other end of the tunnel. “Not there, little Mouse.” The Crone laughed.

“Where then?” He said, his confusion making his voice even higher than usual. “Where is my army?”

“They wait, little Mouse.” This voice was sweet, young… the voice his lady mother used when she did not think Mouse could hear her private words to the Patchwork Knight. “They wait for you under the shadow of our house.”

A booming, ringing, sound coming up from the blackness brought memories of the Isle again. Sandor’s hammer hitting the anvil as his curses rained down on it as well. His father had learnt to shape metal, use fire, on the Isle. He hadn’t enjoyed it. Until he did.

“I will make you armour, little Mouse.” Said the Smith.

“I will make your arm true.” Another voice. Gruff like his father’s. “I will show you how to use that little pig sticker you call a sword.”

“I will tell you who to fight.” The Father again.

“And I will weep for you when all this is done.” A long sigh came from down in the darkness, a sorrow filled sound that brought a sweet smells of his first mother’s bread baking. Tears pricked his eyes.

“No! No, Mother! We can’t fail! We can’t!” He found himself pushing a fist against the slime slicked walls of the tunnel, letting the coldness seep into his knuckles, cooling his head.

Another voice came from the dark depths of the tunnel then, one that made his legs ache as though he had seen a dreadful wound on another man. This voice bubbled and rolled down the tunnel towards him, raising the hairs on his arms and bringing with it the sudden urge to wet himself. This one had never spoken to him before!

“You can. But even We do not know if you will, little Mouse.” Laughter like pebbles grinding against each other. “The Crone is blind. The Mother weeps. And the Stranger… waits.”

Mouse rubbed frustrated tears from eyes gritty and tired from long days and nights at his mother’s bedside. “And I will not give up.” He whispered into the darkness.

“Mouse?”

He turned to see his lady mother, a pale shape in her nightdress shadowed by the larger shapes of the older Lord Tully and the Maester, Simon. The dog was at her side, ears low in tiredness.

“Mother!” He darted to her, wrapping arms about her, feeling the sharp bones of her. I will not give up, he thought angrily towards the quiet gods in the deep darkness of the tunnel.

“Is this the way?” She peered past the iron gate into the black. “A tunnel?” She seemed almost… frightened?

“It is okay, mother. I have been through it. It leads out under the water to a copse of trees… far from the siege proper. It is dark-”

“I have brought more torches, clean clothes.” Maester Simon said quickly. “Food enough to get you some ways from Riverrun… my lord.” He looked to the older man, whose eyes widened slightly.

“You think I will go? Leave Riverrun? Leave… the people?”

Mouse looked first at one man and then the other as some silent argument seemed to be going on between them. Was there time for this? If the ‘Blackfish’ was to come with them then they should all just bloody well get on with it! Another sword might be handy after all… the Gods’ words echoed in his mind again. Where is your army, little Mouse?

“No. My place is here.” The grey haired man said firmly, placing a hand on Simon’s shoulder which the younger man covered over quickly with one of his, before removing it again.

“You should go… Brynden.”

“No. I stay.” The older man’s voice was firm.

Mouse tried not to roll his eyes… the dog also seemed to be frowning. There was no time for dithering about or long goodbyes between close friends!

“Uncle! Come with us. Do not stay and wait for the Lannisters and their swords.” Sansa took his hand in both of hers.

“No, Sansa. As much as it grieves me not to see you safely away from here, I only go as far as this gate.” The dog huffed his impatience. “Your good husband… gods that is strange to say when he looks like that… he wants to be off too so it seems, sweet niece.”

“Mouse? How long must we walk in the tunnel?” She looked apprehensively into the dark. The mastiff pushed his head into her hand. She was scared? After being tied up in nightmares for days now she was afraid of their escape route?

“An hour, not much more.” Mouse wanted to fight this fear for her, but she was the only one who could. Just as she had escaped the dreams. He watched her straighten her back.

“Very well.” Her voice suddenly had the strength of the Mother’s. “Perhaps… perhaps if there is a travelling dress?”

The Maester bumbled with the packs they had brought, pulling out a roughspun dress of grey. The two men turned to give her privacy as she slipped it over her nightclothes. Mouse did not really know why… she was not naked! It must be another grown up thing he did not understand yet!

But once she was dressed the two men embraced her, trying to hide the tears forming in their eyes. Now, that was certainly an adult thing he did not understand! The Lord Tully was saying goodbye to his niece, why shouldn’t he cry? This time Mouse did roll his eyes, but jumped as the two men took turns to pull him into rough, and quick, embraces as well.

“Watch out for the Lady Sansa little man.” Growled the Blackfish. “I know the Hound will do the lio- the dog’s share of that, but you keep your blade sharp and ready to serve her. Hear me?!”

Mouse nodded mutely.

“Your letters are good Harlon. Don’t neglect them. A sharp mind is as much a weapon as a sword.” The Blackfish grumbled at the Maester’s comments, but nodded.

“And you… dog. I don’t think I have to tell you what you need to do.” The Blackfish looked down at the beast who snapped out a quick bark for yes.

“Get on with you all. The night moves on, and the grey light of morning is no time to be emerging from a hidden tunnel near a siege thousands of men strong!”

The Blackfish roughly pushed Mouse towards the iron gate and he opened it. It moved silently, it had been well greased with goose fat in the time since Mouse had found it behind the loose wall of rubble. Since the gods had shown him where to look…

He took a torch from the Maester and led the lady and the dog through and onto the uneven flagstones of the tunnel.

An hour, not much more. He had been right, even with his lady mother’s slow, uncertain pace through the dark. She had smiled wanely when he asked her if she was a’right. She’d whispered about another tunnel, underneath a derelict sept, and had set the dog to a low, angry, growling.

“There are no monsters at the end of this tunnel, mother.” He had smiled, lighting it as best he could with the torch.

“I am afraid that is not true, sweetling.” Sansa had frowned. “The lion’s men and the twins’ men wait at the end of it. And beyond them… a journey into the lion’s den itself. King’s Landing. Again.”

“King’s Landing.” Mouse had said in hushed tones. “Is it as large as people say?”

“Larger than Oldtown? Yes. And glorious… and deadly.” The dog had shivered, hairs raising on his hackles.

“We could go elsewhere. There are lands across the seas. Riveriil showed me his maps and charts-”

“I want done with this curse, little Mouse.” She rested a hand on his head, and for a moment she looked at him with the Mother’s eyes. Determined but loving. “I want a life with your father, and with you.”

Mouse looked at the dog walking with them. “What if… what if we fail? The Seven said-”

“Then we fail. But I won’t let Ektor and his Smiling Brothers think that they win without a fight. And I have my Patchwork Knight, and his squire, to teach them otherwise.”

“An army…” He had whispered.

“What was that Harlon?”

“Nothing, mother. Nothing.”

Sitting now against the firm trunk of the tree, he looked over to where his lady mother and his father walked between the trees during their too brief time together in the growing morning light. He had thought that should move off from the dense copse quickly, but now he was pleased that they’d had this time to pause. Time for him to think and plan, while his mother spoke to his father with the voice of the Maiden… while they kissed. A lot.

He thought back to the darkness of the tunnel and the gods’ voices echoing up from the dark of his mind. Where is your army, little Mouse?

“I will find them, my gods, I will find them” He whispered back.

* * *

 

SANSA

“Where were you?”

His voice was low, deep. And it cracked as though it was the ice on a pond, moving and breaking with the sun’s kiss. I’ve been his sun, she thought, I’ve brought about this cracking in his voice and his heart. She kissed him again then. His lips were still shaping the words when she brought hers up to touch them, and for a moment they breathed into each other. The stubble against her skin thrilled her, and reminded her of the request she had made of him before the nightmares took her. But she returned from dangerous thoughts of beddings to his question.

“It does not matter where he took me.” She found his hand, smiling as her fingers slipped into the half open cage of it. “I came back. I came back to you.”

He frowned. It bothered him not to know, she saw that clearly. If he did not know what she fought, then he couldn’t ready himself to fight it for her the next time. But she felt certain that it wouldn’t happen again. The man in her nightmares, the Smiling Brother Ektor, had underestimated her. Now he knew better.

“He showed me memories… much as we send to each other. King’s Landing memories.”

“I tried to get to you.” There was pain in his voice, and Sansa drew closer, laying a soothing hand on his chest over the linen tunic he’d thrown on from the packs given to them by Brynden and Simon. A sudden flash of guilt. They had left so quickly, with no time to give farewells to Jeyne and Eleyna. She would miss them, and prayed all the gods would keep them safe until they could meet again. But Sandor’s sadness made her feel worse than thoughts of leaving the Westerling sisters behind in Riverrun.

He cleared his throat, but his voice was still near hoarse when he spoke again. “I thought a few times that my sendings had reached you-”

“I saw a dog, running like a shadow. But I simply thought it was a hunting dog of Robert’s-”

“The old drunk was there?”

“And… others.” She looked away; knowing that the names that were running through her head would be in his also. Cersei, Joffrey, Boros, Meryn… “But you rode for me. At the Tourney of the Hand. Or the mockery of it that this ‘Ektor’ made to torment me.”

He growled at the mention of the man’s name, his morning’s change still affecting him. She smiled, forcing out gaiety and a sweet voice. “You were my champion Sandor. I believe I summoned you – or the image of you – to fight him off.”

“Aye? And there were ribbons in my horse’s mane no doubt, just like the ones you wound in Stranger’s.” There was mockery in his voice, but it was light. And then Sansa trembled a little as he wound his fingers in her own loose hair, stroking her behind one ear as he stared down at her with burning eyes. Her own eyes looked to where Mouse sat beneath a tree, not so very far away. He seemed occupied, daydreaming about something or another, but he was still… there.

“Sandor.” Her voice contained a warning but his lips captured hers again and she joined him in the kiss. “Oh, Sandor.” She breathed when he had taken his fill. For this moment.

“Your change comes, little bird. Wife.” He put greater weight on the last word and for a moment she did not realize what he had said before it, so greatly did it thrill her. But then she knew, she felt it. Their time was running out.

“Fly high and warn us of approaching scouts, Sansa. We must skirt eastwards around the southern edge of the siege and return to the followers’ camp and our horses.”

The smoke was already drifting across his face, obscuring it from her eyes as she nodded.

When she had her wings she circled above the large man and the boy, losing sight of them as she rose above the canopy of leaves. Sandor had been striding toward the cairn of stones and overgrown grass that hid the end of the tunnel they had crawled out of hours before. Mouse was already bounding over to his master… his father… and chattering about the need to get Ser Brave and Stranger, and his shortsword, and the greatsword, and the armour, and the patchwork cloak, and… and… and…

If the little red bird could have smiled she would have. But instead she turned on the wing and headed over the thick entwined trees of the small copse towards the brown haze to the north that marked the siege, its churned up mud and smoking bonfires. With her sharper eyes she could even see the carcasses of the burnt trebuchet, men still scrabbling over them as they sat like dead, black, giants below the walls of Riverrun. To her right, still a great ways off across sodden fields she could make out the more colourful pavilions of the army, and beyond them again the shabbier tents and lean-tos of the followers’ camp. A great ways off from it, and the land between was exposed, with only a few long stone walls marking field boundaries to give them cover. This was going to be difficult indeed! With the patchwork cloak and Stranger they might have passed as entertainers again. But what would outriders for the siege make of a very large, very muscular man with no armour walking with a boy towards the followers’ camp? Might they think him a hedge knight who had lost his armour in a game of chance? Might they seek to conscript him into their endeavour?!

At least there was no sign of scouts for now. She rolled and rejoined the two of them beneath the trees, landing skilfully on Sandor’s shoulder with a flap of wings that brushed his dark hair as he stood, hands on leather clad hips. He was looking intently at the gap in between the two great flat stones that they had emerged from in the moonlight. Sansa had breathed a great sigh of relief when she had been finally free of that tunnel!

“I’m bloody loathe to just leave it like this. Lions might find it. We ought to collapse it.”

“And take away Lord Tully’s only escape route?” Gasped Mouse.

“Don’t you fret about the Blackfish. That man’s got a sensible head on his shoulders. His nephew… now that’s another fucking matter!”

She ruffled feathers at his language but he simply laughed, the deep sound of it rumbling through his body and shaking her. “If you could speak little bird, you’d be agreeing with me.”

Sansa sang a brief, discordant song before sending him a memory of her uncle, thin and desperate after they had got him back from the Lannisters, pleading for his wife’s safety. Pleading with Sansa to use her “strange northern power” to get his lady back.

“They have my wife, uncle! And she’s with child!” Edmure had wailed, and Sansa sent the words echoing in Sandor’s head.

“You want me to pity the Wetfish for his lost, and welping, Frey wife?” Sandor shook his head, but his words were softer. “Aye, perhaps losing a wife with child might excuse some of his nagging over you and your ‘powers’.” But then he frowned. “Still, I have no pity for a man who’d have a sick girl fight on his behalf though, Sansa. Strange magic or not.”

But did Edmure have the right of it? Sandor had burnt the trebuchet as the fiery hound. She had sent grown knights and soldiers scurrying off in fear at the sight of the direwolves returned. What else could this power be turned to if they could be its master instead of its slave? In Tarth she had bound Lord Selwyn. Leashed him as you might a dog, and made him obey her. Perhaps it would not take fire and smoke to destroy the siege and return her uncle’s wife… and unborn child… to him. Perhaps it would only take a single leash on a single person. Devan Lannister? Would his command be enough to send the lions and the twins men away?

“Sansa…” There was caution in Sandor’s tone. “What are you thinking?”

But she was a wing again, fluttering away from them both before Sandor could speak.

* * *

 

SANDOR

He wasn’t made for this! No man as large as him could possibly be expected to… _sneak!_

Mouse was fine, the little boy scampered just like his namesake, crouching down in the small shadows of the tumbling stone walls and darting quickly past the gaps. He was also small enough that had he stood they’d only have reached his shoulders. It was not so with Sandor.

He rolled his shoulders groaning, aching from the strain of making himself so small and from tension. Any moment some keen eyed lion would see the large man stumbling his way behind the ramshackle walls. Then the alarm would sound and all the sneaking in the Seven bloody Hells would not help the unarmed man and the boy.

“You’re cross.” Whispered Mouse as he circled back to Sandor, twitching as he forced himself to stop. He’d gotten ahead again. Sandor could only go so fast on his hands and knees while Mouse raced through the water logged fields. The boy was impatient to get to his mother, and the slow pace was only making his fears worse. “You are cross with her. Again.”

Sandor sighed deeply.

“Told her once it didn’t matter. That as long as I could save her one bloody time more than she was able to get herself in some damned mess or other-”

“She’s brave!”

“She’s… she’s brave, boy. That’s true enough. But she’s reckless.”

Mouse picked nervously at moss growing between two jagged stones in the low wall they cowered behind. Water squeezed out between his dirty and ragged fingernails. Everything was damp in these damned Riverlands. Damp… and fucking cold. Sandor pulled his brown roughspun cloak closer, dragging the ends through the mud on the ground as he did. There had been frost on the mud when they’d started out after her this morning.

“You said she’s trying to break the siege. That’s brave!” Mouse’s voice was getting louder with every word.

“Hush lad! Bring down lions upon us and they’ll have me hung high before the sun reaches its crown!” He whispered harshly, but he knew his little squire would be hanging right there next to him too. “Aye, she’s off to break the siege, I’m sure of it. And I’m afraid for her. For what she might do.”

In Oldtown she’d attacked men with the smoke. But there were other things that she could do that worried him more. On Tarth she had done something to that old fart Selwyn Tarth. Something that had made Sandor’s flesh creep and his fur stand on end. They’d not spoken of it. Instead he’d poured himself into a bottle and had fallen into memories when he should have been challenging her to explain it. But he was certain that she’d drawn on some of the darkness of this fucking curse to make Lord Tarth… pliable. Tarth weren’t a man with a reputation for cordial generosity, but he’d helped them. Helped Mouse begin to mend from his broken leg when the boy was nothing to him. Less than nothing…

“Perhaps it’s good that she uses the curse-”

“Magic aint brought us anything good!”

Mouse’s face fell as Sandor snapped, and the warrior cursed himself. To the boy all this was still some great and glorious story that he was going to play out with his wooden knights for a rabble of other street rats at whatever town they stopped at next. The Patchwork Knight and his Lady. The great battles at sea. The night rides away from foul enemies. The happy ever after.

But what if Sansa needed saving from… herself?

“Magic brought you to me, father.” Mouse’s voice was small. Smaller even than the boy himself. Sandor sighed and rubbed his face over with a hand muddied from crawling. Of course, there was that. The path of the curse had brought the boy a second disappointing father. One who might not use his fists on him true, but still, a father who could still be doing better for him.

“Forgive me… Harlon.” He used her name for him, the name he’d adopted him with. “You’re right at that. It brought us together in some roundabout way. Of that I’m grateful. Truly.”

Mouse smiled up through his hair, clumped together as it was by yet more mud. Sandor sighed.

“I just want this all done with. I’m long past tired.” He looked down at his stained clothes. “And I’m fucking dirty. All I want is a warm bath and a horn of ale.”

“And mother there?”

He ruffled the boy’s hair, dirtying it even more, if that was possible. “And your mother there, of course.”

“She scrubs my neck too hard sometimes. Does she do that to you too?”

“No, lad, she don’t.” He tried to put away thoughts of Sansa washing him. This was not the time for  _that_. “But she’s right to scrub you, boy. You seem set on growing mushrooms in the soil behind your ears.”

Mouse smiled widely. There was a small gap in the bottom row of his teeth that Sandor’d not seen before. “You been scrapping with the other boys in Riverrun? I don’t mind much, if you won that is…”

“Oh! No sir. It fell out. It got all wonky and then it just fell out.”

The boy was growing up. Fast. They needed to be off this damned road soon, so he could have the time and chance to get bigger and have some kind of life of his own. Though what life the adopted son of Sandor  _bloody_  Clegane could have was a worry to him. Being a Stark this far south weren’t much better!

“Come on boy. We need to get closer to the damned camp and find out what mess your blessed mother is in this time.”

Sandor started crawling again, ignoring the speed at which Mouse got to the corner of the field, before he flipped himself up and over the wall into the next. When Sandor finally got there his muscles complained from all the  _damned_  sneaking and he  _damned_ near fell over the  _damned_  little wall, falling down into a  _damned_  gorse bush on the other side! Bloody thorns scraped at him and he cursed under his breath as Mouse scampered back to help him unpick his tunic from it. Gods damn it! He’d never been one of those poncey fucking knights with fine silks and all that shit, but damn him if he hated crawling about like a worm on its fucking belly! The tunic tore…

“Grrrrr!” The sound was pure dog, and as it rumbled through his chest he fought the temptation to see if he could tip the scales and give up crawling as a man for running as a dog. But if Sansa was in the camp already that would force her into her human shape. A human shape that although… lovely… was also soft and defenceless. Except for the smoke. But he would not have her forced to shape that damned smoke to her will against lions and twins men. As much as he wanted to see the whole fucking lot of them gone, she was not the one to do it.

“Stay still, I’ve almost got it!” Mouse pulled the material free and Sandor crawled away from the damned bush. He’d face down men a ‘plenty, fought with his own damned brother, won tourneys… and he felt more beat from that particular contest than any before. Ah, that bath and the horn of ale. He fair drooled like the dog at the thought of them, but they were out of his reach for now.

“Father? I hear something.” Mouse said, worry running across his face. “Something coming from the ground?!”

Sandor looked about, but saw nothing, heard nothing.

But then his bones felt the vibrations, travelling up from his boot clad feet, straight into his chest. “Horses!”

He grabbed Mouse’s hand and pulled him to his feet before slinging him up and over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. The boy weighed little and Sandor’s long strides took them to the fair end of the field quickly. But not quickly enough. He skidded in the mud as four horses soared over the low stone walls ahead of them and then turned sharply as their riders aimed them back for the two vagabonds.

“Hold there!” Shouted one man aback a dun coloured mare. A man wearing a golden lion on his surcoat.

Sandor wanted to swear but it would do no good. “Good day sirs.” He mumbled, lowering his head and pulling Mouse closer on his shoulder, hoping to use the boy to hide his scars.

One of the other men laughed, a fair haired man with a nose too big for his face. “What have you there, good man? Is it child harvesting season in these parts already?”

“Silence!” barked the first man. An officer. “What business are you about? Traipsing through fields so close to the siege?!”

“I’m headed back to my farm with my boy, your grace.” Sandor gave him the wrong title, overplaying his deference and stupidity so the lion would think him some yokel. “Boy fell, slipped in the mud. Hurt his ankle. Needs carrying. Stupid boy. Thrash him when we’re back.” Mouse made pitiful noises over Sandor’s back, ever the bloody mummer.

“We could save you the bother, and thrash him now. And you. For being spies.”

“Aint spies, your grace. Just commonfolk. Doing nothing but growing potatoes. Gods keep the King, that’s the truth.”

“A big man like you should make himself more useful to the Crown.”

“The Crown needs its potatoes.”

“Big man like you should be wielding a sword against the rebels.”

“I’m better with plowshares, mi’lord.”

“You talk back a lot for a common farmer. Maybe because you’re more used to barking out orders than taking them. Is that it?” He heard the sound of bows straining as they were drawn.

He had no weapon, no armour.

The Captain laughed. “Did you really think a bit of mud and a boy on your shoulder would hide who you are? I been in service to the Lannisters at Casterley Rock and King’s Landing. And no one forgets the Hound once they seen him. Seen how fucking big and ugly he is.”

He set Mouse down and the boy glared up at the men.  Sandor just spoke plainly, flatly.  “Then you know you’re already a dead man talking.”

“I don’t see no sword on you.”

“I got hands, don’t I?” Sandor sneered. “Or are you scared to face me without your three pretty little ladies in waiting holding your petticoats?” The big nosed man laughed again, not caring at all that the captain glared at him.

“Enough. You’re coming with us to Ser Devan’s quarters. Try anything, and there’ll be an arrow growing from your pet’s back.”

Mouse spat into the dirt and held up his small fists. “Make us!”

The Captain nodded at one of his men and before Sandor could get to him the man had turned his horse around Mouse and grabbed him up onto his saddle as the boy thrashed about, trying to get his remaining teeth into the man’s flesh. But then there was a dull, sickening, sound as a quick rap from the pommel the lion’s dagger made Mouse go limp.

“You fucking bastards!” Sandor moved towards the men, and the remaining archer loosed his arrow into his thigh. “Argh!” Shouted Sandor, falling into the mud again, his scream turning into a low growl as he curled about the shaft of the missile.

“As I said. You’re coming with us to Ser Devan’s quarters.”

* * *

The blackness gave way to light again, although sharp stars still rained down from the heavens, scorching across his eyeballs to bury themselves in his ribs, his gut, his groin. He rolled away from them, only to find new lines of red pain wrapping about his wrists.

“Don’t move. You shouldn’t try to move.”

A soft voice, and a small shape in the darkness. Through his blood stained hair he could see a slight figure leaning over him.

“Sansa?” He croaked past a split lip. “Sansa…?”

“Hush… hush…” The words were like those for a child awoken from a nightmare. He recalled fists, and boots, and blades flashing in firelight. And then, before that, an arrow piercing his flesh.

He turned from her. “Don’t look. It aint so bad, I swear. Don’t look!”

“I’ll not look, ser.”

In the midst of swollen skin his eyes sharpened quickly, drawing in what little light there was in the tent. A female, aye, but not his wife!

“Who are you?! Where is she?!” He growled, pulling against the sturdy pole of the tent, and the manacles keeping his arms back around it. His bare feet thrashed against the churned dirt of the ground, clanking yet more chains there, as he tried to get them beneath him to stand. Pain flashed anew in his groin and he groaned.

“Please ser, calm yourself. You’ll bring guards!” She was kneeling, begging. Close enough for him to smell a strange perfume on her. Something light and sweet. Too many times in court he’d near wretched as the ladies had walked past doused in vile smelling oils and scents to cover their unbathed bodies. This was gentler stuff. His head still reeling from the beating, started soaring off into the sky again. He closed his eyes forcefully, shaking his head a little to wake his mind.

“And who are you? A maid sent to clean away my shit?”

“I… I… yes, ser.” He watched her reaction. No. This one was no maid who’d done for men in a castle or a camp for all her life.

“Liar.” And a dog can smell lies, he’d said to her once, a hundred thousand years ago. Where was she?! He focussed on the girl again. “You’re noble.”

She got up from her knees and walked towards a basin of water on a table. “You’re mistaken, my lord.” Her voice shook a little as his refocusing eyes followed her. Pretty enough. Small chin, big brown eyes. Long brown hair in a braid to her waist. Her waist…

“That maid’s dress don’t really hide your growing belly, you should know that if you think to use this disguise again.”

She looked back at him with terrified eyes. Had she looked as scared at her bloody fucking wedding?

“Frey. I name you Roslin Frey.” His eyes went to her belly again.

“Roslin  _Tully_. I was wed to Edmure…”

Sandor tried to keep his scorn from his face. Not least because any expression he made hurt as bruised and cuts moved on his skin there.

“Please, is he well?!” She returned with a horn of water to hold up to his lips, kneeling close again as he drank and coughed.

“Well enough. And my squire?!” He glared, ignoring the pain. It would all pass soon enough, thanks to the bloody curse. “Have your men beaten him too?!”

“ _My_  men…?!”

“Aye, there are twins men here. A few have left marks of their admiration on my fucking face, ribs and coc-”

He wanted to rage at her, but he was not prepared for the tears. He was surprised how much they affected him. He must be getting weak…

“Not my men! I am captive here!”

“It don’t bloody look like it! I don’t see manacles on you, Lady Tully!”

She sobbed and held forth her wrists. “But they are there! I swear it; I am as captive as you!”

Sandor laughed. “So kind of them to allow you to visit their prisoner!”

“I stole away from my tent with help from the maid that they have allowed me. She beds a lion soldier she was given to, but she loved a Frey. She helped me to visit Edmure before. But now he is in the castle and I am here until I birth an heir. Or a daughter… who will be left out on the fields to die!” Her soft, delicate hands went to the roundness growing under her borrowed dress and Sandor found himself staring again. Would Sansa look like this if she ever caught? It would suit her well, he thought….

“Please. Is he  _well_!?!” She cried.

“Tell me of my squire!”

“They left him in a tent, bound only with hemp.”

“So he is gone.” Sandor nodded with dark glee. The knights had underestimated the little sneaking Mouse.

“Yes. Please.  _Edmure_.”

“Well enough. Better for being back at Riverrun with his uncle, I’ve no doubt. How did you know I’d seen him?” Daven had assumed as much; the Lannister had tried to beat Riverrun’s secrets from him. Word from King’s Landing must have confirmed Sansa’s claim to Winterfell… if only for the Lannister man’s eyes. And Sansa had been lost from court at the same time as Sandor… many must have put two and two together on that. At least those in court who knew that the dwarf’s swelling wife was a false, Fleabottom Sansa.

“I heard them…  _questioning_  you. I heard them ask of Riverrun. He is well? Truly?!”

He sighed, the girl’s fretting was irritating him as his bones ached and his flesh complained. “I said so, did I bloody not?!”

She nodded, holding back tears, those big brown eyes blinking quickly.

“Didn’t realise the Freys held any love for the remains of the family they cut down at the fucking Red Wedding!”

She gasped, and then began to shake as she whispered. “He is my husband.”

“And all brides go to their bedding in love with the grooms chosen for them by their murderous fathers!” He snapped out the words but they reminded him of Sansa. She loved him before they wed after all. All the good it had bloody done her. Where was she…?

Roslin frowned. “Or they come to love them after! Edmure was gentle, kind-”

“ _Gentle’s_  right enough.” He spat out the word like a curse. The girl was starry eyed about the Wetfish. Gods save her.

“And you are not.” She whispered, protecting her bump again with those thin little hands. His hand would near cover the whole thing were he to touch it. What would it feel like, his child under his hand, in his wife’s belly? He could be gentle like that for Sansa.

“Gentle? No, not me.” He slouched back against the pole. “You remind me a little of someone. But she has more steel in her blood than you.”

“The Lady Sansa? I’ve heard rumours in the camp, rumours that she’s here and not at King’s Landing. Or that it wasn’t her, but a demon from the Seven Hells, come to destroy the siege. But I don’t much believe that one. Or the one about her summoning direwolves from the hells to help steal Edmure away-”

The dark look on his face silenced her. “She’s no bloody demon.” He growled out.

The girl looked at him with large curious eyes. “You knew her in Riverrun? Or before… perhaps?”

He laughed bitterly. “Aye, I know her. Want to get back to her at that. Wherever she’s got to this time… So how’s about you undo these manacles instead of talking my ear off?”

She shook her head. “I can’t do that. Ser Devan keeps the keys.”

“And a serving girl should be able to get into his tent-”

She gasped. “I couldn’t possibly!”

“You got in here didn’t you?”

“That was… that was…”

“In your interest. It was in your interest to get news about the Wet- Edmure.” He smiled darkly. “Get the key, get me loose, and we’ll get you to him. Do it or you and your babe might never see your _gentle, kind_  husband again-”

His words were cut off by the sound of men running. Sandor stopped still, and then barked at her. “Hide, girl!”

But the feet carried on past the striped tent they were in. And then men shouted outside, and great horns were blown. “Strike the tents. Strike’em!”

“They are… they are moving the camp?” She was trembling again, drawing her maid’s worn shawl about herself. “Why? What could make them move?”

 _Little bird, little bird what have you done?!_  But there was no time for worrying about it.

“Make ready to go. There’s no time now to wait about for keys, that’s for certain!”

She looked confused but he didn’t have the breath explain. It was dangerous, surrounded as they were by wood and canvas, but he called the fire and controlled it as best he could, bringing it to bear on the manacles about his wrists and feet. Roslin yelped as the metal turned a bright red and a thin whisper of smoke danced to the cloth ceiling.

“What is that?!”

“It’s nothing. Ignore it.” He grunted, forcing more heat into the metal until even the damp grass beneath them started to scorch. But then they fell from him, and he was free. Getting up was harder in truth, but given time he’d heal up.

“Come with me and I’ll show you how to get to Riverrun. Or stay here and wait to find out what’s going on. It’s all the bloody same to me.”

Was it, really? His eyes drifted down again to the slight swelling that her hands kept touching. Sansa’s unborn cousin was in there. Sansa’s family meant something to her that he’d never completely understand… even if Mouse was beginning to teach him about all of that. For Sansa he would get the girl to safety. Make sure that there weren’t ever a little Tully girl with her red hair left squalling in some field to die in the mud and the cold. Or some Tully boy growing up as the Lannisters’ Lord of Riverrun, all tied with strings like a puppet.

He grabbed at Roslin’s little hand and pulled her to the flap of the tent, looking out as quick as he could.

He nearly got his head knocked from his shoulders by a charging horse for his recklessness. Others followed, shadows racing across the tent as Sandor stepped back inside. Trumpets blared and drums rang out. And men cheered.

“What’s happening?!”

Sandor glared at the dark shapes passing outside the tent.

“Reinforcements. From King’s Landing.”

“How do you know that’s where they are from?!”

“Because he’s leading them.”

“Who?”

“The fucking  _kingslayer_.” 


End file.
